Kristen Sanders | Infinite Beach

In Kristen Sanders’ new suite of preternatural paintings, the violent cacophony of our present seems to have been washed away by the murmur of migrating sands and lapping seas. Cleaved from the familiar strictures of anthropomorphic time, the artist’s subjects inhabit windswept eternities. Through an exploration of the posthuman condition, Sanders delves into our primordial past and the vast unknowability of whatever it is that will succeed us. Emerging from seemingly incongruous sources – the fossilized shells of long ago extinct bivalves, still lives constructed from latex gloves and prehistoric rocks, a snapshot of a painting by Sanders’ late uncle, who died in a Ukrainian studio fire when she was a child – the works in Infinite Beach are bound together by a common line of inquiry: what remnants survive at the periphery of existence? Repeated motifs reveal a preoccupation with surface and persistence. The smooth gloss and rigid joints of anatomical models, the otherworldly textures of silicone and volcanic rock, and the rugged beaches of the artist’s native California coalesce into an enigmatic vision of vestigial endurance. In Morning Waves, masks drape limply and prosthetic limbs lie akimbo. Crouched on the seashore, the spectral being in Midnight Marks straddles the threshold of becoming, poised to either evolve or slink back beneath the ocean’s boundless depths. If the vacant-eyed subjects of Projected Self and Strange Presence were once us, they are not anymore, at least not quite. It is within this confusion of alienation and recognition that the poignancy of Sanders’ practice is revealed. The hollowed-out world she constructs uneasily parallels our own. Colored with midnight blue and violet, acid green, and smoldering tangerine, the artist foregrounds her subjects against coastal landscapes whose abiding emptiness recalls de Chirico’s melancholy town squares and Magritte’s implacable skies. The addition of collaged canvas cut-outs and overpainted images of seashells and skulls produce an archaeological effect, a stratified record of material perseverance that also alludes to the remnants of consciousness and the persistence of memory. Though her subjects are foreign, they bear the familiar pathos of androids and simulacra, and the uncomfortable spark of recognition we find in their estrangement asks that we reflect upon ourselves. By excavating the material conditions of posthumanity, Sanders reminds us that we are always stranded somewhere along the continuum between where we are going and whence we came. 

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Kristen Sanders (b. 1989, California) is an artist and educator currently based in St. Paul, MN. She received her BA from the University of California Davis in 2012 and her MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2016. Recent exhibitions include Lucky Charm with Moosey Art in London, 44 Signs of the Times at Mana Contemporary in Jersey City, NJ, Early Bodies at Kathryn Brennan Gallery in New York, NY, Right Now at Hair + Nails in Minneapolis, MN, and Kristen Sanders and Vanessa Thill at Step Sister in New York, NY. Sanders has also been featured at NADA Miami in 2019 and Felix Art Fair Los Angeles in 2019. 

Artist Walkthrough Event
Saturday, April 23rd at 2pm
This will be a unique opportunity to dive into the artist's work in her current solo exhibition, Infinite Beach, and learn about where her beguiling images come from. Emerging from seemingly incongruous sources – the fossilized shells of long ago extinct bivalves, still lives constructed from latex gloves and prehistoric rocks, a snapshot of a painting by Sanders’ late uncle, who died in a Ukrainian studio fire when she was a child – the works in Infinite Beach are bound together by a common line of inquiry: what remnants survive at the periphery of existence?

Gallery Hours
Wednesday-Saturday: 12:00 PM - 5:00 PM

Image: Kristen Sanders. Midnight Marks (detail), 2021. Acrylic on Canvas. 40×32 inches.