Naked Light - Solo Show
Location: Galleri Urbane
Naked Light
Anna Kunz
April 9 - May 14, 2022
Public Opening Reception April 9, from 5:00-8:00p.m
Galleri Urbane is delighted to welcome back Chicago artist Anna Kunz for her highly anticipated solo
show, Naked Light. Completed in 2022, this series of paintings asks viewers to experience the warmth
of light, represented by color, as a purveyor of society. These paintings galvanize conversation
between both viewers and color upon canvas while confronting the emptiness and lack of connection
from physical distancing.
Kunz’s works are in conversation with one another, flowing variously embodied subjectivities through
color. “…the edges of each form and color bleed into each other, so there are no real contained
boundaries,” she says of her work, mirroring her pursuit of creating ephemeral spaces that disrupt
contemporary social and material boundaries.
Kunz utilizes acrylic on canvas and oil on linen for Naked Light as mediums to express kinship and
community, addressing solitary existence. Dry and water-soaked strokes create an amalgamation of
feelings in each painting. Using planks to traverse the canvases splayed on the floor, she slowly layers
one color of paint at a time to the entire body of work. She creates a dialogue between heavily coated,
bold hues of paint with lighter layers that are less opaque. No section of a canvas appears to be
touched only once — layering thought and feeling.
Upward Slope (2022) is a work of tessellated panels focused on Kunz’s pursuit of physical cohesion to
adjoin unlike perspectives. The colors are performative for the viewer, displaying opportunity for
various impressions from the help of light’s mutability.
Kunz’s work sits alongside that of artists using color to speak for tangible existence. It’s a contemporary
collection that interweaves various communications between the physicality of rhythm found in the
paint upon the canvas and choreography of growing solidarity in our muted society.
For the UT Southwestern Medical Center Clements Collection, Kunz further investigated performance
of color in a commissioned series of seven panels. Living beyond the canvas, Kunz worked with Nina
Sarin Arias on a ready-to-wear collection shown at New York Fashion Week A/W 2022.
Kunz has been an artist at Galleri Urbane since 2016 and is newly represented by Alex Berggruen, NY.
Bio:
Received an MFA from Northwestern University, Evanston, IL and a BFA from SAIC, Chicago, IL. Kunz
participated as an artist-in-residence in the Marie Walsh Sharpe Studio Program, Brooklyn, NY and The
Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Skowhegan, ME, among others. The artist’s work has
been exhibited at McCormick Gallery, Chicago, IL; The Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago, IL; Providence
College Galleries, Providence, RI; TSA Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, Brooklyn, NY, and Madrid, Spain; and
WhiteBox, New York, NY. Her work is included in the public collections of The Philadelphia Museum,
Philadelphia, PA; The Block Museum, Chicago, IL; and Columbia University Teachers College, New
York, NY; among others. Kunz has been honored with nominations from: 3Arts Foundation, Louis
Comfort Tiffany Foundation, Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, the Rema Hort-Mann Foundation’s
Individual Artists Grant, Artadia finalist, Chicago, and The Joan Mitchell Foundation. The artist lives and
works in Chicago, IL.
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