Kirsten Everberg

"Cinema, (LA Theater)", 2010, Oil and enamel on panel, 72 x 96 in.

"Cinema, Balcony (LA Theater)", 2010, Oil and enamel on canvas over panel, 72 x 60 in.

"Bar", 2003, Oil and enamel on canvas over panel

"Church, Haut du Lievre, Nancy, 2005, Oil and enamel on canvas over panel, 72 x 108 in.  

"The Armory, NY (Field and Staff Room)", 2010, Aquatint, etching on Somerset paper 300gr, 17.9 x 20.8 in.

I was recently nosing around some LA area gallery websites and stumbled across these images which immediately grabbed my attention. Probably because I recently did some theater pieces myself and have been thinking along the lines of ornate interiors. Most of her recent work has been in the form of black and white aquatint etchings, an under-represented media in contemporary art if ever there was one. But for me it's the paintings that best convey the loose energy of her work. Viewing art on the internet is not a very fair process and one has to extrapolate a lot based on the experience of viewing art in real life. Printmaking is especially hard to appreciate via electronic media. But whether it's etching or painting she manages to convey a sense of the fussy detail, the cluttered energy and baroque furnishings of a bygone area with a very modern gestural simplicity. She uses the same approach to depict more contemporary spaces as well, allowing rough imperfect lines and hastily blocked in forms of color to give the cleaner lines a rough vitality. Either way I find her work mesmerizing and inspiring. Maybe I'll even get a chance to see it in person when I go down that way this July.
You can view more at her gallery's website: www.1301pe.com
There's a few images available on artnet.com