Ky Ander­son hails from my home­town of Kansas City, Mis­souri. More notably, how­ever, she cre­ates won­der­ful paint­ings that have quickly become one of my favorite things I’ve seen lately.

Ky has writ­ten a short state­ment about her work:

My paint­ings inhabit their own unique space, while draw­ing from numer­ous sources, both tra­di­tional and con­tem­po­rary. Strad­dling the line between abstract and rep­re­sen­ta­tional imagery, my work con­tains ele­ments of refined craft while also embrac­ing an intu­itive tech­nique and a cer­tain amount of crude­ness. The imagery leads to a sub­con­scious ter­rain, where ele­men­tal forces offer insight to the strug­gles and joys of an earthly existence.

I think that most of all, I find it inter­est­ing how Ky describes her work as crude. When I think of crude, I think of sub­ject mat­ter and lev­els of taste. Here, Ky uses it to ref­er­ence the han­dling of media and the brash­ness of which it is applied. The beauty is in the raw and unfor­giv­ing nature of her work, espe­cially in regards to the grounds of her paintings.

The push and pull exhib­ited in these pieces are another aspect that really draws me in. There is a heavy hand applied to the glazes and envi­ron­ments in Ky’s work, while over top are del­i­cate lines, gin­gerly drawn. It is a Jekyll/Hyde feel to the cur­rent body of work for this artist.

All images via her web­site.