What do you think of when you think about Wolf Kahn? Is it the fantasia palette, the barns glowing ember-like, the tangled rushes as if singed by a fire, or his hot pink shirt, green tie and strawberry socks? The artist did not disappoint on Thursday evening at the Center for Creative Printmaking in Norwalk, CT. His molten colored monoprints on exhibit downstairs, Kahn fielded questions about his work and life upstairs. Fine Arts Magazine

“I don’t believe in control”, the artist said, in a parallel reference to baseball pitching, observing that you learn and train, and then make your best pitch; or, you generate ideas for a work and release them. If the pitcher actually aims, the batter knows where the ball is going and may hit it out of the park. Suspense and the unknown play a part in both a killer pitch and a successful art work for Kahn, who disdains the comfort zone. Smudges that occur once a pastel work is put back into a sketchpad become the markings of an ambiguous maker – chance.

Wolf Kahn was born in Stuttgart, Germany; his family fled Nazi persecution when he was ten. Even now, he said he loves to paint the insides of forests, those of time spent in the German woods as a child. When queried as to why he chose barns as subjects, Kahn replied that architecturally they are simple and yet have grandeur. Those elements resonate for him and have only tangential reference to the barn as a symbol, as he puts it – like the Greek temple in classical times – of America’s golden age. And yet the barn also contains a sense of arrival and shelter, of safety and harboring, and it contains volumes of comings and goings, open space and undifferentiated light.

Defined as one of the 20th century’s foremost colorists, Kahn reflected on the good color sense that he feels is innate and emanates easily from him. That which is too difficult, should probably not be pursued, he says. As for his extraordinary juxtapositions of hue, Kahn employs color as if a language that may at first sound foreign but to which one then acclimates. It is an eloquent lexicon he alone created which speaks to inner emotional pitches and constitutes them in us.

The artist spoke of the “inner anxieties” that must come out, that necessitate and energize art and propel an artist to make it. As individualized as this process may be, Kahn affirms interconnectedness – never being afraid to be influenced by someone else. Perhaps this includes the visual dialogue with the artist’s wife, Emily Mason, whose stunning aquatint monotypes conjoin his in the survey below.

“The art world is not a pleasant place right now”, he mused in response to advice he would give to an aspiring artist. In his closing repost, CCP executive director Anthony Kirk said, “But tonight, this was made a pleasant place by you, Wolf.” The exhibition continues until May 9, 2010 and includes an all-day Monotype Masters Class, May 8, 10:00 am – 4:00 pm, a full day workshop led by Wolf Kahn, with Lisa Mackie and Anthony Kirk.

© by Diane Dewey, Contributing Writer