Artist Kyle Kilty identifies his work’s subject as the places and images, psyche and mediums of “in-betweenness,” and his monumentally scaled mixed media paintings embody that energy in the sweeping scope of their detail-rich chromatic fields. The work is also liminal in its emotional effect, being both hefty and grounded, but also attentive and obsessive—a closer approach to their topographical surfaces reveals such a proliferation of varied gestures that one can’t help but imagine the labors of their creation. Poured, marked, scratched, sketched, brushed, revealed, concealed, expressionistic, precise, fractal, figurative, evocative, elusive, geometrical, geological, patterned, pictorial. Even the figures which do arrive are enacting movement and multifaceted symbolism by their presence. Kilty’s work is now on view as part of the Hammer’s Made In L.A. 2023: Acts of Living biennial, where his approach resonates with its themes of performative processes and meaningful materiality.

L.A. WEEKLY: When did you first know you were an artist?

KYLE KILTY: I think I was in third grade when my mom took me to the library and she casually asked what I wanted to be when I grew up. I remember being nervous about the answer. I wasn’t aware of art as a profession. I just knew I wanted to be someone who draws.

 

What is your short answer to people who ask what your work is about?

My work is about the in between. It’s between abstraction and representation. Between the elegant and the awkward. Between the expansive and the internal. Between confusion and understanding. Between the simple and the fussy. Hopefully it fuses this in betweenness and becomes something felt rather than understood.

 

What would you be doing if you weren’t an artist?

For my day job, I currently work as a Set Painter for television and features.

 

Did you go to art school? Why/Why not?

I moved to Los Angeles after getting my bachelors degree from the University of Nevada in Reno. For my MFA, I attended Claremont Graduate University. I knew I wanted to continue going to school, partly because I wanted a better understanding of contemporary art, but the main draw was the community that a campus provides. I’m pretty shy so this type of structure was an important aspect of university for me. It also gave me the unique opportunity to learn about and ultimately be accepted to the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture.

Why do you live and work in L.A., and not elsewhere?

I moved to Los Angeles with two friends during the summer break between my junior and senior year of college. I got a job at Universal Studios theme park for the summer, and my friends and I spent our time off just exploring the city. I fell for Los Angeles in that magical summer. The vastness of the city made it feel like an unknowable place. I still feel this sense of discovery in L.A. after 20-plus years of living here.

 

When was your first show?

I had my first solo show at the gallery space in Elliott Hundley’s building in 2020. It was at the beginning of the pandemic, so it wasn’t widely seen, but it was such an important moment for me. I never lost focus on the art I created, but it had become something that lived in my personal studio, with my day job on sets taking the lead. This show made me realize how important it was to share my work with others.

 

When is/was your current/most recent/next show or project?

I’m currently in the Hammer Museum’s Made in L.A. 2023: Acts of Living, up now through December 31.

 

What artist living or dead would you most like to show or work with?

I’m currently working on a new series of work loosely tied to the parameters of forced perspective, so I have been thinking a lot about Piero della Francesca, and James Ensor’s strange perspective of the crowd he painted in Christ’s Entry into Brussels in 1889.

 

Do you listen to music while you work? If so, what?

Not always, but when I do, I get really obsessive. For my series Negatives and Positives I only listened to Beyonce’s Lemonade album on repeat. I also constantly go back to Philip Glass’s Einstein On the Beach and Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s Return to the 36 Chambers.
Website and social media handles, please!

kylekilty.com

IG: @kdkilty


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