Overview
Abstraction is key in Mona Kuhn's new series of works, set to go on view in an exhibition at Flowers Gallery from 4th April - 10th May, 2014. The LA-based artist, acclaimed for her contemporary and intimate depictions of the nude, takes a new direction in this latest series titled: Acido Dorado. On view will be a selection of photographic works ranging from landscapes, architectural details, reflections and a single figure repeatedly obscured and dislocated.
Set against the backdrop of the Californian desert, and photographed at the golden modernist structure Acido Dorado in Joshua Tree National Park, Kuhn's photographs playfully combine a number of visual strategies. Patterning, translucency and reflectivity are mixed with the casual closeness between photographer and her subject, Kuhn's friend and collaborator Jacintha. Kuhn pushes the effect by introducing metallic foil as an additional surface, in some cases producing purely abstract results.
The human figure emerges like a surrealist mirage, fragmented and indistinct, only to be submerged in shadows or over exposed. The building's facade is glass and mirrors; it serves as an optical extension to the artist's camera and lens. Light is split into refracting colours, desert vegetation grows sideways, inside is outside and outside in.
The exhibition marks Kuhn's increasing focus on photographic techniques that appear to dissolve the figure into its environment, whilst continuing her ongoing re-interpretation of the art-historical genre of the nude. This time she investigates further, by bringing together the figure, abstractions and landscape into one.
