Nancy Kembry
under $250
Nancy Kembry's work over the past 25 years has been an enlightening foray into the realm of the ‘Still Life’:
I paint ‘Still Lifes’, not as an exact imitation of their external appearances, but I paint from memory, their inherent sensual and tranquil qualities. I use these attributes to create works that are non-moralizing with an uncompromising directness suffused in an evocative mood that invites thought and reflection.
The paintings are bathed in a warm luminous light, a result of complex, yet subtle layering of colour. This technique also enriches the idea of ethereal beauty that I find in nature so awe inspiring.
I think of myself as a defective baroque painter, edging towards realism while embracing minimalism and albeit with a wink and a nod to Chardin, Cezanne, de Chirico, and Morandi, in other words flirting with disaster.
The unadorned architectural setting I employ adds to the quiet stage where my painting/artistic objective becomes the subject of the play at hand. A poetic-philosophical homage to nature and the Arts, both past and present. Somewhere between here and there my work delves into that nebulous area where the intellectual and emotional enigma of life and death presents itself as commonplace and extraordinary.