Kini Collins can kick your butt. Yeah, yeah, yeah her art is captivating and widely acclaimed, but she can also literally kick your butt. For a little over 15 years she studied and taught Japanese martial arts in both the United States and Japan. The really cool thing about that fact, besides that she can kick your butt (did I mention she can kick your butt?) is that you would never be able to guess that she's anything other than an artist by simply looking at her paintings. You'd swear she's been painting all her life. At least that's the way she makes it look.
The fact is, Collins didn't begin painting until relatively recently. In 1985, after her stint in Japan, Collins started writing fiction. While working on her B.A. in fiction writing from the University of Vermont, she decided to take up drawing in order to hone her observation skills and become a better writer. And from there, just like that, Kini Collins decided that she wanted to be an awesome painter. See, I told you she could kick your butt!
Collins' latest exhibit Landfall is currently on display at the Paper Rock Scissors Fine Art Gallery at 111 36th St. in Hampden. The show is made up of 14 landscape pieces inspired by a recent trip to Costa Rica of which Collins says, "There is a never-ending, monumental, terrific battle for resources (in Costa Rica). Nothing is wasted, but so much is consumed. In the service of creation there is an enormous amount of destruction. I was drawn to this paradox."
In this show, Collins paints in her "signature style" of layered and textured acrylics combined with charcoal drawing on canvas and wood. It is an interesting effect. The rough surfaces of the wood and even the nails hammered into some of the planks become part of the painting.
Likewise, the surfaces of her canvas paintings are also rough and multidimensional, achieved by slathering on thick layers of paint, which completely obliterate the grained surface of the fabric canvas. These heavy textures are accentuated by the sand and dirt that she often mixes into her paint which then undergoes a process of layering, scraping, and sanding. According to Collins, this mutes the palette of primary colors and makes what is pretty into something that is beautiful. "I paint to remind myself that it is deterioration and change that leads to maturation and wisdom," she says.
Gallery owner, Allison B. Dickinson says that for an untrained, self-taught artist like Collins to be so successful is somewhat of a rarity in the art world. However, Collins is quite an exception, "Kini is intense," says Dickinson.
So are her paintings. Done in a bold, minimalist style shot through with broad brush strokes of bright color, they seem as raw as the landscapes that Collins must have encountered while visiting Volcano Poas in Costa Rica. As Collins describes it, "the fact of the beauty and lushness of the land is undeniable, but the underlying cost of that beauty, the reasons for the abundance, is what interested me." This inspiration, created by the land and its natural resources is evident in the four main subjects that Collins' show focuses on: forest, volcano, mountain, and light.
In her pieces entitled, "Volcano, 2003" and "Mountain, 2003" the bright turquoises of the water and rich reds of the earth conjure images of an exotic land rich with minerals and vitality.
Her pieces entitled "Light/Map" consider the play of light on land and skin and result in very abstract, yet very recognizably anthropomorphic shapes. The organic lines and lifelike pastel shades make these paintings come alive.
A similar effect comes through in Collins' tree depictions, which go by the title "Forest 2003." The contours of the trunks and the texture of the bark evoke human muscle structure and skin surfaces to produce a sense of fantasy and invitation. The images have a familiarity that reaches out past the abstraction of their forms. It's kind of like the feeling you got as a kid walking through the forest at night: every shape was a monster, every tree branch, a slender arm reaching out to grab you.
