Artist Debbi Kenote has three paintings in our group exhibition, Index.

 

We reached out to her with a few questions about her work in the exhibition, her studio practice, and things she is looking forward to. In the video, Debbi elaborates on her abstract painting process, managing her studio practice during COVID, an upcoming residency at DNA Residency in Provincetown, and her involvement in helping to organize Ride to D.C., a bike ride involving 220 bikers riding to D.C. for the March on Washington. Debbi recorded this video in her studio in Brooklyn, NY.

 

Debbi Kenote, Oriel Ojos, 2019

 

Debbi Kenote, Lightning Whelk, 2020

 

Debbi Kenote, Snell’s Window, 2019

 

In her abstract paintings, DEBBI KENOTE has developed her own visual language through positive and negative spaces, shapes, colors, and the interactions between them. Fascinated by systems, her paintings often begin with a grid of some kind, paired with unstructured and fluid mark making. Kenote finds inspiration in methods of framing and interlocking; windows, mirrors, borders, quilts, puzzles, and tiles. Often the work reveals  a curiosity of the world she lives in, which is used as a source for shapes, color and spatial relationships.The resulting abstractions are moody, sometimes subtle, and often filled with high contrasts, between bright and dull, sharp and fuzzy, saturated and desaturated, empty and full.

Debbi Kenote is a painter based in New York City. She received her MFA from Brooklyn College in 2016. Her work has been exhibited in the US and internationally. Residencies include NES Artist Residency in Skagaströnd, Iceland, the CAI Projects Residency, in Cadiz, Spain and Vermont Studio Center.