Gallery Show

Sorry I haven't posted in a while, but I've been moving into a new house and getting ready for this:


I am so excited to have a gallery show! The silk paintings I made are very large and it just doesn't seem right for them to only hang in my house. If you are in the KC area, come check out the gallery for First Fridays in November!
Here is another of my panels and the write up for the show.


Suspended Narrative
Stories in Silk and Oil

Delicate silk paintings flowing with soft lines contrast with hard edged oil paintings and prints with intense color combinations. On the surface, the artwork created by Christy L. Berry and Steph Toth Kates seems curiously dissimilar at first glance. But dig a little deeper and the connection becomes clear. Both artists collect visual imagery from familiar stories and guide the viewer into a reflection of their personal connection with these tales.

Kates draws her imagery from fairytale and myth. Like myth, her paintings seek answers from a confusing universe, but on a more intimate level. They are interior landscapes – delving into remote inner corners where body and conciousness combine, exploring ideas of the body as a universe and a home. Inhabiting this inner expanse are animals familiar from children's storybooks along with cells, veins and neurons lifted from medical diagrams.

Berry’s silk paintings also reinterpret familiar stories. She draws her inspiration from Biblical passages – capturing fleeting moments in dream-like condensed images on voluminous silk panels. The women in her silks are both a self-portrait and a universal figure forming metaphors concerning the soul. Colors and lines flow and evoke the sense of an unexpected memory.

Stories twine throughout this exhibit – sometimes recognizable, sometimes just touching on a familiar cord but always inviting viewers to explore and impart their own memory, dream or experience into the narrative.