SILVER CIRCLE WELCOMES NEW GALLERY ARTIST Maggie Kendis-mixed media
About the Artist:
Growing up, my ambition as a child was to illustrate children’s books, or do the cover of the New Yorker Magazine! I was always drawn to the whimsey of flat patterns and animals. I drew with rapidograph pens, coloring in with watercolors.
In college, I was introduced to printmaking, primarily intaglio.
It was the intimacy, the texture, the flatness, I enjoyed.
I could work on a small plate, or multiple plates with colors, and when ready to print, there was always an element of surprise.
Unlike painting, I had to wait through the inking of the plate, the soaking of paper, and running it through the press, to see what I got.
After college, I spent a quarter in Mexico studying silkscreening and batik. Batik also held the element of surprise. Between dying the cloth, and applying the wax to resist the dye, the process would be a continual building up of layers of colors. A lot of the process was working in negative space and only after removing all the wax, there was again that element of surprise, seeing what I got.
For over thirty years, I have sent out Christmas cards using linoleum print to chronicle my year.
Now, I am back to the small intimate pieces of tile, using as my subjects, my dog, cats, pets of friends, birds, chickens, guinea hens, goats, llamas, and horses in the neighborhood.
I work in black and white as well as color, often creating a collage background specifically designed for the individual piece. The results are infinitely varied and never boring.
Silver Circle Gallery is located at 75 Main Street in Downtown Putnam, CT. Since 2008, Silver Circle has been a fresh, contemporary space where local and regional visual artists convene to show and sell their work, educate others, and inspire one another and the community. Silver Circle recently became a community partner with Windham Arts as the Regional Arts Center for northeastern CT.
Visit www.silvercirclegallery.com for more information.