An ecstatic vision of color and an introspective journey of shape, the Windward exhibit at My Pet Ram in the Funk Zone — curated by Marcello Ricci — features the work of Ida Badal and Ryan Nord Kitchen, two American artists whose respectively successful work comes together in conversation over sight and memory in the natural world. “Ida and Ryan both offer a fresh take on our relationship with nature that I thought art lovers in Santa Barbara would appreciate,” says Ricci. The intimacy of his gallery provides the ideal environment in which to consider art and uncover your own interpretations. These are some of mine.
Kitchen’s work is a reminder of landscapes, emphasizing the negative space of land rather than agonizing over specific geographic features. The lines within each piece are insinuations of these features, anchoring the eyes in vague yet familiar spaces. And the colors! Kitchen does not stray from bold palettes with lighter colors resting atop darker colors — in conversation with them — as if the air itself can be seen. Kitchen’s use of color is striking in the use of contrasting colors that interrupt the muted or vivid palette that consumes a piece.
"NM15 (Wind)" contains a light blue laid upon red and brown shades conveying a blustery evening in which no reason can be derived for the wind’s direction. A circle in the top left corner evokes the full moon over this scene of color and spontaneous play. "NM14 (Sandia)" features a hot sun blazing over mountains and valleys of an American desert. In the lower center is a shock of blue, contrasting with the hot tones throughout the piece and perhaps suggesting a mirage of water amid the desert scene: a reminder of my time riding through the New Mexican desert, where Kitchen currently resides, and pondering the seemingly endless stretches of red earth. These pieces, and others within the Windward exhibit, work to subvert the traditions of landscape painting, opting for fragmentation and unspoken observations.
