Page 52 - Flaunt175-diana

in 2016, artist david kennedy cutler started receiving large boxes
of CSA vegetables every couple of weeks to his home. It turns out it was his mother sending them from Vermont. There were so many vegetables, though, that Kennedy Cutler was at a loss to try to eat through all of them. So, he found an alternative use. “I was beginning to use them in my studio,” the artist shares from New York, “photographing them, and then incorporating them into the work.” By 2021, more and more physical things found their way into the artist’s output. “Plants became a natural outgrowth of that,” he continues, “both house plants or cuttings that I would find on my way between my studio and my house.”
Kennedy Cutler’s new exhibition, Shadow Metier, is current- ly on view in East Hampton, New York’s Halsey McKay Gallery. Transpiring during springtime’s long-awaited unfolding, the art relates to climate, not only in relation to the weather, but the so-
cial dynamics of the time—those of the haves and have nots, and how everyone aspires to having, no matter how it amasses.
Kennedy Cutler explains the layers of possession at play, “You can see in the saturation of how much is condensed within the work itself—there is so much of my thinking, and so much confu- sion, jumbles, disparate, unrelated things, layers of canvas...” But he’ll share that his art is bigger than him, relating it to a sponge, absorbing everything that is sent its way. Perhaps, when observ- ing, you might see essences of the pre-Raphaelites, or Gabriel Rosseti? Can you see Janine Antoni in there? Music influences? Performance influences? Social media influences? You probably can, as Kennedy Cutler believes, “Art should be a repository for all of your influences.”
A receptacle, yes. A copy, never. “I take a lot of pain to not step on other people’s footsteps,” he says resolutely. “If I repro-
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DAVID KENNEDY CUTLER. “BUD- DING” 2020. INKJET TRANSFER, ACRYLIC, ARMATURE WIRE PER- MALAC ON CANVAS. 29.5” X 30.5” X 2.5”. COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND HALSEY MCKAY GALLERY.