By Khalida Sarwari
In her first solo museum exhibition, West Valley College art department chairwoman Kathryn Arnold explores the concept of language and the ways in which language interprets what we experience.
Aptly titled, “The Impact of Language,” the exhibition opens on Valentine’s Day at the Triton Museum of Art and runs through March 29. In this exhibit, Arnold showcases about a dozen works, including large-scale oil on canvas paintings and a couple of installations that she describes as being “non-representational.” This means that the paintings do not contain any recognizable images, so it’s left up to the viewers to create their own interpretation of what they’re seeing.
“I love poetry, and a lot of times I use poetic titles,” Arnold said. “Sometimes I use poetry to kind of match what I see happening on the campus, so I came up with the idea that maybe I can apply a poetic title to create the meaning, instead of having it match the colors. Instead, I use the title to imply meaning.”
Along with language, Arnold also explores the themes of the creation of meaning and the concept of infinity. She tends to use mark-making and painted brush marks to create a sense of space in her paintings.
“I like the paintings to feel like you can almost walk into them, and that’s probably why I like to use large scale, because they’re more human-sized,” she said. “So the idea is that they feel like you could just walk into them or they have depth or space or something like that.”
When asked from where she draws inspiration, Arnold was quick to cite poetry and visual experience as two of her primary influences. She gave the example of going on a hike and noticing the look and smell of the forest as an example of a stimulating experience. She said she is inspired by the works of such poets as William Carlos Williams, T.S. Eliot and Robert Creely.
For Arnold, this marks her first solo exhibition at a museum, but it’s hardly her first exhibit. She said she was approached to do the show by Preston Metcalf, senior curator at the Triton, following a joint Mission College and West Valley College faculty exhibition in the summer of 2013.
At WVC, Arnold teaches art history and studio art and also serves as the division chair for the fine arts division. She has been an artist for two decades, and aside from painting, also enjoys creating digital art and pursuing photography.
She is based in Campbell and has a studio in San Francisco, where she currently is exhibiting two works at Sandra Lee Gallery. Up next for her is a new small-scale collection, through which she plans to explore bright, “jewel-like” colors.
