Kristan Kennedy's Textile-Inspired Paintings at Soloway Gallery Challenge Gendered Labor

Kristan Kennedy's exhibition "Kristan Kennedy Meets a Clock" at Soloway gallery in Brooklyn features paintings that undergo a distinctive aging process. The Portland-based artist stains and collages linen sheets with materials like ink, enamel, and aluminum before throwing them into a washing machine. This aleatory gesture carries feminist overtones while nodding to textiles and gendered divisions of labor. Works like T.R.N.T. (2014) display brushy, weathered images hung unstretched or draped over a brass armature that projects into the gallery space. While Kennedy's mark making references Expressionism, she avoids Romantic melodrama, favoring exuberance and snarky fun instead. The press release defiantly states, "All the paintings have been made, even the embarrassing ones." T.R.N.T. presents a splayed diptych with dense black lines on one side and curving gestures on a yellow field on the other, connected tenuously at the bottom. The piece droops languidly, creating a sensuous, smart, and erotic effect that defies embarrassment.