Kitty Blandy: "Paintings, Prints and Sculpture"
Elissa Cristall
Gallery,
Vancouver
May 10 , 2001 - May 26,
2001
 Untitled Seated Figure monotype |
Vancouver artist Kitty Blandy, though still relatively young, has produced an enormous collection of imagery in the past 15 years centered on the human figure. She has more than 10 solo exhibitions and 30 group shows to her credit. Blandy has explored the figure in a myriad of ways: through oils on canvas, in drawings and pastels, as sculpture, and most of all with a wide range of print media. In her studies can be found glimpses of the loose and languid line of Matisse's nudes, the rotund bulk of Moore's sculptural figures, and traces of gestural sketching. Her work is a veritable catalogue of body types, poses and artistic referents but it seems as if neither artists nor patrons ever tire of this genre and its possibilities. The monotypes in Blandy's exhibit are in the 30-40" range and seem to be very much about the graphic element of weight. Her lines are thickly drawn and many of the subjects feel pressed to the bottom of the formats. Polygons of solid colour act as formal devices to counterbalance their figurative mass. Although she has little academic training, she was fortunate to have the early support of the Malaspina Printmakers Society in Vancouver, B.C. In the past ten years, Blandy has concentrated her efforts on exhibiting in London, England.
© Mia Johnson