About Kendra
Kendra in her studio
Kendra attended the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, receiving a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1994. During her time at RISD she spent a year in Rome, Italy, participating in a European Honors Program. After a brief interlude of travel, teaching, and independent studies, Kendra returned to school to obtain her MFA, on a scholarship, from the University of North Carolina in Greensboro.
Since then Kendra has been highly active in the Art World, exhibiting her work in dozens of solo and group showings on both the East and West Coasts, as well as working in galleries, in a variety of capacities; and as an instructor at various schools and Universities, teaching drawing, painting, and printmaking. In spite of her incurable wanderlust, Kendra has managed to insinuate herself into the heart of the Art Community in whatever city or province she has landed in.
The current pieces Kendra has been assembling are a culmination and fusion of her preferred mediums: printmaking, drawing and painting, which entails a fairly elaborate layering process. The first stratum of a piece consists of a mono-print, or an initial inked-in design or outline captured from a masonite plate, onto which the design has been drawn or painted, by pressing the canvas or paper onto it. Once dry, successive layers of drawing and painting are applied to the printed design. The process is repeated again and again, until Kendra is satisfied with the piece. This technique of superimposing the different mediums, or “building up”, gives depth and dimension to the piece as well as offsetting soft, fluid shapes and colors with stark, abrupt lines and jagged edges. The eye of the viewer is invited to wander over the images, from one arresting detail to another; or to just step back and take it in as a whole. Kendra’s paintings appear as if a product of both precise, deliberate arrangement and spontaneous abandon, ranging in sizes from Queen to postage stamp; and like most good art, they give the viewer full license to interpret the images or just be completely bamboozled by them. Though she swears up and down that her only artistic influence is the Creator (Him-Her-It-Self), many people have thrown out names such as Kandinsky, De Kooning, Basquiat and Pollock, to name a few, when attempting to describe Kendra’s work. When asked about the inspiration or motive or intention behind her creations, a typical response will be, simply, Chaos, Beauty and Love. And anyone who has the pleasure of beholding Kendra’s mesmerizing and baffling paintings will no doubt discern the mischievous interplay of those very Universal elements: Chaos, Beauty and Love.
Kendra is currently living and working in the Pacific Northwest.