Renée Kahn's architectural renderings are now on view at PMW Gallery until August 10th, gallery hours by appointment. Visit the gallery on July 31st and/or August 7th for special hours with the artist, from noon to four.
The reconstructions of her daughters view in Manhattan originate from the six weeks Kahn spent in the apartment after breaking her ankle eight and a half years ago. Despite a seemingly dormant six weeks of her life spent in the apartment, the wonderful Manhattan views she experienced on the 11th floor apartment gave her the opportunity to produce an array of beautiful artwork.
Following suit of Cezanne and his repetitive renderings of the views of Mount Ste. Victoire, Kahn sketched the same scene over and over again, in all different weathers and lights from different vantage points. After healing and putting the drawings away, six years later Kahn rediscovers the drawings and sees them in a surrealist light. "I had entered, without being aware of it, a psychological state known as “breaking set,” (literally, “breaking down a mindset”), which refers to freeing oneself from habitual responses and thought processes. This enabled me to approach the scene before me, not as a drawing “problem,” but one of depicting shapes, the ever-changing light, intriguing shadows, mists and clouds, mysterious people and menacing black birds." After realizing this she began making paintings based on the drawings, and pushed them farther away from visual reality, distorting perspectives and purposely blurring figures and placing them on rooftops. What are the people doing up on the rooftops? “Let the viewer decide what they’re doing up there, all alone on the rooftops,” Kahn says. “Art needs mystery; it shouldn’t give up its secrets easily.”
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