Kyle Staver Recent Paintings at ZÜRCHER GALLERY

James Kalm shuts down work in the studio, peddles between the raindrops, and slides into Zürcher Gallery on Bleecker Street to make a brief tour through a selection of recent paintings by Kyle Staver. Having watched the work of this painter for the last several years, you reporter is interested in presenting the developments and commenting on how Staver’s work has progressed. These paintings are based on myths and legends and show the artist’s use of painterly devices such as back lighting, modulation of forms through tonality, a luscious sense of painterly surface, and a humorous ability to warp and bend figures to great compositional interest. A parallel practice is Staver’s fired ceramic studies. These wall sculptures are a further demonstration of the artists clever twisting, not only of the figures anatomy, but of the narrative and imagery of these mythical themes. This program was recorded Sept. 8-9, 2018