Amy Kligman Shines Bright at Real Tinsel

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Photo via Real Tinsel Gallery

'Toolbox For the Future' by Amy Kligman

Toolbox For the Future by Amy KligmanAcrylic on linen2024

The world has grown louder over the past century-and-a-half, brighter too, and both because of new technology. “Artists now have access to colors they never had before—the petroleum industry and modern chemistry gave us new pigments,” says Shane McAdams, director of Real Tinsel Gallery.

His thoughts are triggered by the bright new show at Real Tinsel, “Amy Kligman: Being Still/.Still Being.” Her acrylics go wild with color, a set of still life portraits of her studio space with suggestions of Cezanne, Matisse and Giorgio Morandi.

Kligman teaches at the Kansas City Art Institute and runs a gallery called Special Effects. “Kansas City is a mirror image of Milwaukee with the same division between conservative suburbs and a thriving downtown,” McAdams says.

Her paintings have the flattened surfaces of modernism but might contain an image suitable for an Old Master. The canvases brim with objects from her personal space—a wine bottle, vases, a Tarot card, a shelf of books (Signs & Symbols, Women and Madness), making narratives within narratives, “They speak to memory and personal history—they are bodiless portraits,” McAdams continues. They revel in the suggested textures of tiles and textiles.

“Being Still” will be Kligman’s first exhibition in Milwaukee, and her work will also be included in the Door County Contemporary Art Fair, June 4-7 in Fish Creek. McAdams suggests that Kligman and recent generations of “high chromatic” artists are responding against the enforced “neutral gray” of a corporatized, bureaucratized society. “Her paintings are lush, dense with color, a great show for spring!” he says.

“Any Kligman: Being Still/.Still Being” opens with a reception 6-8 p.m. Friday, April 10 at Real Tinsel Gallery, 1013 W. Historic Mitchell St. The show runs through May 16.