Kirsten Everberg’s latest work is a painting tour-de-force. The artist has long mastered her handling of enamel and oil paint, with a signature style of loose abstract brushstrokes and pools of paint building up into clearly recognizable scenes. In her previous show of historic urban architectural settings, these environs were juxtaposed with depictions of modest dwellings set deep in lush natural environments, all hauntingly devoid of human presence. Here the two worlds merge, in large-scale paintings where the barriers between interior and exterior are blurred — quite literally — and the viewer is often left wondering just where one ends and the other begins.
Everberg’s interest in cinema, its effect on perception and place, has greatly influenced her work. In particular, this exhibit references Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky’s “The Mirror” (1975), a nonlinear narrative film of a dying man reminiscing on past events in his life, combining dream sequences, flashbacks and present day scenes shot in both color and black-and-white. Likewise, in this exhibition there are works in color, black-and-white, and a few that appear to be fading between the two. “You Know (Mirror)” is divided into vertical registers of unequal proportion. From right to left, a metal bucket hangs from a tree painted in black-and-white; an empty house; and a simple landscape composed in muted greens and blues. On their own, each scene holds together. But when taken as a whole, the structure falls apart. The point of entry into the work is less distinct, and the relationship between the viewer and object becomes less certain. Like Tarkovsky’s “Mirror,” the works here offer scenes caught between reality, memory and dreams
Originally published in ArtScene (June 2013)