PUNCH

Kat Richards, Kalina Winters, and Lindsey Kircher
On view: September 16th – October 18th, 2020
Opening reception: September 20th, 12 – 5 pm

5-50 Gallery is pleased to present a three-person exhibition titled PUNCH featuring recent works by contemporary painters Lindsey Kircher, Kat Richards, and Kalina Winters. Set within the context of our current historical moment, this exhibition is a celebration of identity in motion and personal transformation. PUNCH will open on Wednesday, September 16th with an opening reception on Sunday, September 20th.

In observance of the new season coupled with the year's unprecedented turn of events, PUNCH serves as a "sociocultural harvest", a time for reconnection, maturation, and deepened understanding of our own evolution, both as individuals and globally. The trio of artists embraces an existential bedrock of uncertainty and ambiguity, asserting the need for innovation and optimism, while disrupting heteronormative and patriarchal traditions.

While the artists diverge stylistically, each has developed a striking painterly language, employing vivid colorscapes, rhythmic elements, and the illusion of space to push their technique forward. Lindsey Kircher's flamboyant vignettes center around resilient heroines emboldened by their surroundings. Kat Richards translates her vision into an index of bulbous fragments, queering the body by conceptualizing it into parts. Kalina Winters investigates flatness and dimensionality as a metaphor for the subversive potential of marginalized individuals who dare to take up more space. At its core, PUNCH recognizes and affirms untold narratives about individuals finding their place in society amidst chaos and systemic obstacles, exploring painting as a means for challenging convention and commemorating progressive movement forward.

Cascading incidents of social unrest often stimulate artists to create works that reflect the uncertainty of their time. Artists that come to mind who did so range from Goya in 18th century through to the German expressionists in the 20th, just to name a few. Often as not, even in times as fraught as the present, art can stimulate a hopeful or even optimistic vision for the future. The best example of this were the great musical films of the1930’s. When the world was mired in deep recession and nations teetered on the brink of war. The themes of those films, by the standards of the time, offered a hopeful and even joyous narrative that there is a brighter tomorrow.