K BLICK ARTIST

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Josephine Bailey, Art Historian and Curator
 

‘A change in the weather is sufficient to recreate the world and ourselves a new’. So wrote Marcel Proust in The Guermantes Way, the third volume of his extraordinary auto-fictional novels In Search of Lost Time (1913-27). We may detect an echo of Proust’s line in the semi-abstract paintings of K Blick, whose limber use of colour create works that are probably best described using mythological terminology: florid and floral, godlike and animalistic, with moments of both clarity and confusion. 

 

Blick’s canvases take a moment to fully digest. There are multiple narratives, references and patterns that swirl and distort to reveal semi-abstracted images of gods, dinosaurs, and other creatures born from both past and present. Through these depictions, the artist imagines a world in which animals are superior to humans – in direct opposition to the ravaged world we live in today. The central theme that Blick returns to over and over, is one of human superiority. Blick posits this alternate dimension, encouraging both societal and self-reflection. 

Several of Blick’s paintings feature a similar compositional device: mesmeric swirls of pinks, blues, yellows and greens that hide a figure of some kind. There is a real sense of Baroque painterly action in the application, a passionate and frenzied approach creating an all-encompassing atmosphere. This ‘pattern’ that Blick utilises is, of course, a simple visual phenomenon, and one that is impossible to repeat exactly on each work. Whilst they may all take some inspiration from nature, science or mythology, they’re individually set down by the artist as a physical manifestation of her own interests, passions and histories. Each work is an image that has been filtered through the distorting lens of history, mythology, time and memory.

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K Blick completed her initial degree in Tokyo, followed by a Master's in Fine Art at Central Saint Martins, London. Her work has been exhibited internationally such as, the Florence Biennale, the Tate Modern and the Saatchi Gallery in London, UK. Recent solo and group exhibitions include among others: Small is Beautiful, Flowers Gallery, Cork Street, London (2021);  Our Home, This Mortal Coil, Ione and Mann Gallery, Cromwell Place, London (2021); Ashurst Emerging Artist Prize, Shortlisted Artist Group Exhibition, Ashurst, London (2021); Moving Fast Moving Closer, London Grads Now, Saatchi Gallery, London (2020); Tate Mammals, Tate Exchange, Featured Group Installation, Tate Modern (2019). Her works are held in prestigious collections such, as the Bulgari Private Collection in Italy, and the Shahmoon Private Collection and Pictorum Private Collection in the UK.

 

kblickartist@gmail.com
@kblickartist