The Things We Leave Behind
 
“Clean Slate”
 
Fair and square
Your wall was torn,
Since a long time ago.
 
Forgotten tokens
 
Of an amorphous past.
This you have let go.
 
Tara Estacaan
 
 
These paintings address physical and emotional relics once significant to me that I ultimately had to abandon to embody maturity and a state of inner knowing. Tired attachments to places, ideals, fears and false securities become inert. The idea that abandonment, once such a detriment to us when we are young, can ultimately compel us forward into self-evolution.
 
While exploring a new medium in vinyl flashe paint, I found a fresh freedom of expression in the intense opacity of the paint, both as an under painting and in final layers partnered with oil paint, graphite and paper. The intensity and immediacy of the saturated color of flashe paint adds a new sensibility to intuitive painting for me coupled with a more decisive, authoritative hand. A sense of saying more with less has arisen, an old theme in contemporary art but relatively recent in my process. Painting feels more contemplative now, and paint has become partner rather than something to conquer. 
 
Diane Kingzett
October 2023