“Simple at the Root” by Nichole M. Christian
Simple at the Root
By Nichole M. Christian
Let me tell you a story.
Let me show you a journey.
This is possibly how the artist Don Kilpatrick—if he were more at ease at describing the indescribable—might begin to unravel the invisible threads and silent, yet sly intentions at work in his new solo show “Process / Progress.”
This collection of figurative paintings and hand-carved linoleum and woodcut prints is focused, like the artist, on the long view, a journey that finds Kilpatrick comfortably blending, even blurring the lines between years of nose-to-the grindstone study and a more recent recommitment to creative freedom. Deciding which force is greater, if it must be determined at all, is a question that belongs to the viewer.
What is unquestionable is Kilpatrick’s technical excellence and ability to weave, almost seamlessly, between painting and printmaking.”Both these mediums can’t get really complicated,’’ he explains, “but at the root, they’re pretty simple and visually profound.’’ Johnny Cash himself might marvel at the intensity that comes popping to life in a three-color block woodcut tribute print. Kilpatrick’s vision of The Man in Black is both stark and soft thanks to a fusion of violet, blue-violet, and black. This is textbook printmaking and a beguiling example of how effortlessly Kilpatrick the painter ( he’s a trained illustrator too) seems to flip between his chosen art mediums. His fluidity is evident in the levels of the details and composition choices all shining equally without apparent preference. Shadows in the prints catch the eye as vividly as those that draw viewers deeper into his paintings.
If there’s an obvious through line between the prints and the paintings, perhaps it’s a masterful understanding of the dimensions of color. Kilpatrick knows what he knows and he shows the way color’s many hues, in the right hands, can become a sort of liquid language.
The paintings are purposefully small, none larger than 11X14 inches, yet expansive and evocative moods move through each of them. Night and day and that golden hour in between are front-and-center muses in these works. Light is both a radiant and a muted spark. And if the varied ranges selected for such small scale work isn’t alone intriguing, Kilpatrick does the equivalent of a visual mic drop, by incorporating his specific color swatch along the left side of each painting, giving his viewer all the more reason to lean in. Yes, he did that, and so very well.
Though the use of colors captivates, it is in a way the least of what Kilpatrick wants you to see and possibly feel. Pull in close and one discovers a subtle yet daring sameness as a theme. Kilpatrick’s eye is locked on good old ordinary slices of life, scenes so ordinary they could be understandably overlooked or lazily labeled artless. “We’re in an era where everyone is perfecting the art of distraction, but visually there’s still so many things right in front of us every day just to look at,’’ he says. “I don’t have to travel 2,000 miles to find something unexpected or beautiful.’’
Noteworthy too is the fact that exploring the ordinary as source material is not sudden for Kilpatrick. These works took shape first in a sketchbook and pay tribute to a personal 15-year monk-like practice of filling sketchbook-after-sketchbook with drawings of the world he moves through. “I’ve always been interested in taking something common and trying to elevate and show the importance,’’ he says.
The streets of Detroit dominate but scenes of Tokyo and New York also become subjects, homages to a love of cityscapes and to a time when travel was possible and plentiful. “When I was in Tokyo, by drawing other people in the subway car, I was able to remember very specific moments, things you naturally just forget. When I paint and draw this way, I can kind of feel the sounds, the different things happening otherwise it all gets numb, more distant and cloudier. Maybe 10 years after the fact, something random will trigger it, but the memory is nothing like it is when I record it this way.’’
Many of the moments depicted are in fact mundane, but that’s both the trick and the delight of this exhibition. We’re met with a Kilpatrick in full command of the details that separate novice from master but yet every bit as attuned to the wonder and play of a beginner. “I took kind of a break from painting. I got burned out,’’ he says. “I was teaching but I don’t think I was feeling it. I wasn’t exploring anymore.’’
A decision to teach the introductory painting course at the College for Creative Studies—where he’s also the Department Chair of Illustration—brought Kilpatrick back to his brushes. “I’ve been practicing what I’m preaching to the freshmen,’’ he says. “The process really put me in the right mindset to slow down, to take my time just noticing again, really looking at things like the basic color wheel instead of rushing through so that I’m able to explain something like a split complementary color scheme to someone who’s maybe never heard of it.’’
And just like that, Kilpatrick the teacher was once again Don the exuberant student. “The more I dove into the basics with the students, it helped me understand for myself what I was working through and missing about the process. I feel like these paintings, this show, is a culmination of that effort and the progress of slowing down, of really going back.’’
Nichole M. Christian is a writer and veteran journalist. She has worked as creative director, editor and lead writer for the Kresge Foundation’s annual eminent artist monograph series. The titles include: A Palette for The People (2021), honoring painter and educator, Shirely Woodson; Wonder and Flow, (2020) honoring ceramicist Marie Woo, and A Life Speaks, (2019) honoring poet and activist Gloria House. Nichole was also coauthor of Canvas Detroit. Her writing also appears in the poetry chapbook, Cypher, summer 2021; Portraits 9/11/01: The Collected Portraits of Grief from The New York Times; the online arts journal, Essay’d; A Detroit Anthology, and Dear Dad: Reflections on Fatherhood.
She is currently co-director of We exChange, a yearlong arts project with Signal-Return letterpress, pairing six writers and six visual artists in a collaborative exploration of the meaning of change in a time of chaos—its limits and its unexpected possibilities. The project will culminate in an exhibition in late 2022.