Kathleen King

“Illumatoons”

The title of Kathleen King’s exhibit, “Illumatoons”,
is a combination of the words “illuminate”, (to make
illustrious or resplendent), and “cartoon”, (a
satirical or fanciful drawing). This improvised word
of the artist’s best describes King’s most recent work
that interfaces these two artistic traditions,
(manuscript illumination and cartooning) and
represents them in new points of view found in these
“fun” but formally complex and densely mixed media works.

Source materials are taken from botanical fragments
and other detritus, (which, in turn, are used as
models for the central subjects in the pictures).
Evocative of Baroque Art, wallpaper and comic visual
art, such as Japanese Manga Art, the resulting
tableaux in this particular series are ”flora into
fauna fables” that unfold before the viewer as each
painting is contemplated. An illusionist spatial depth is
implied and each subject could be seen as cute or monstrous.

King obsessively intermixed layers of computer
generated and hand drawn paper collage passages with
painted surfaces to develop her compositions. The
fanciful narrative content was revealed in improvised
stages as each work progressed over time.

The “Illumatoons” series is more imagist and narrative
in nature, but they retain the complex layers and
passages of acrylic paint and other media contained in
her on-going abstract field paintings.