Artist Biographies

Danielle Kimzey

Danielle Kimzey’s exuberant paintings feature vibrant colors, deliberate lines, and densely packed geometric and organic forms. The works on view in Piecing It Together are varied in scale, yet all evoke a paradoxical sense of structured chaos, resultant of the artist’s exploration of patterns and puzzles. Kimzey examines the ways in which patterns can orient the self in space or spark ingrained memories.

Kimzey’s work can be understood in the tradition of hard- edge painting, yet in exploiting the logic of patterns and puzzles (such as Legos), she creates compositions with a depth of field seldom realized within this genre of abstraction. Sharp edges and defined lines give way to visible brushstrokes that betray the presence of the artist’s hand. Kimzey even allows her young daughter to make the first marks on many of her paintings. From those loose, completely naïve brushstrokes, Kimzey then structures her composition, piecing the work together like a puzzle that must be solved. This unabashed intersection of Kimzey’s practice and experience of parenthood emphasizes the intimacy of the artist’s subject matter and the central role of the domestic sphere in her work.

Mary Laube

Mary Laube’s paintings and drawings strike a fine balance between delicacy and structure, ambiguity and precision. Laube employs a wide range of mediums to render masterfully controlled lines and forms, and create intricately textured surfaces. She flattens the perspective of her compositions to depict abstract forms that explore and complicate the intersection of constructed and idealized spaces.

The works on view in Piecing It Together feature both interior scenes and assorted, isolated objects gleaned from Laube’s private and public surroundings. The Mythos series features a collection of such objects, chosen by the artist either because of their subtle idiosyncrasies or intangible sentimental value. Yet, Laube does not overtly celebrate these objects; instead, she depicts them in a nondescript manner that beautifully replicates the tension between everyday experiences and idealized memories of home. These distorted and romanticized abstractions are fabricated from personal mythologies, parsed truths, and collective archetypes, and adeptly mirror our unique, yet shared, perception of home.

Christopher Reno

The far-ranging styles of Christopher Reno’s paintings and drawings reflect the equally varied mediums that the artist employs. On view in Piecing It Together are works on found objects (a discarded plank of wood and thrift store frame), vellum, and handmade paper.

Detailed mark making also characterize Reno’s works – expanses of vibrant colors are, upon closer inspection, revealed to be intricately composed layers of lines and geometric forms. Reno employs repetition to create densely patterned abstract works that reflect the precision of stitches and pixels.

Reno takes as both inspiration and central subject matter his family’s collection of quilts, afghans, and embroidered fabrics. Following in the tradition of textile artists such as Sonia Delaunay, Varva Stepanova, and Anni Albers, Reno brings to the forefront of his practice an art form that is often categorized as craft. This inclusion of objects and traditions intimately associated with the home gives evidence to Reno’s strong desire to incorporate the domestic sphere into his formal abstract painting practice.