04/01/2026
“Debbi Kenote: No place out of the wind” opens this Saturday, April 4th. This marks the artist’s first solo show with the gallery, and will be on view from Saturday, April 4th, through Saturday, May 9th. An opening reception will take place on Friday, April 10th, from 6:00 to 8:00 PM, with the artist present.
“No place out of the wind” continues Kenote’s exploration of shaped painting as both image and object. Inspired by visual motifs—such as interlocking geometries and natural forms—each canvas starts with a stretcher customized by the artist before it is stretched and layered with oil paint. The support beam becomes a primary compositional element of her paintings, creating complex forms that extend the work into space. Inspired by her upbringing in the Pacific Northwest, where she was exposed to craft traditions such as woodworking and quilting, plus her background in sculpture, Kenote approaches the canvas as a site of construction as much as surface.
While heavily rooted in abstraction, Kenote’s poetry practice often informs the emotions, memories, and meanings transcribed in her paintings. The exhibition’s title, drawn from a poem written by the artist and borrowed from Annie Dillard’s essay “Total Eclipse,” suggests a journey characterized by exposure and the ensuing search for shelter. Poetry operates as a generative structure. As the artist notes, “In general, as I experience analytical moments in life, I gather them into the medium of poetry. Over time, these poems accumulate and become the source material for my drawing practice. In my drawings, I depict an aesthetic environment that mirrors my experience, as well as physical objects and places that become doorways into abstract painting. Often, plant life and simple geometric forms—a leaf, a circle, a seed, a triangle—form their own lexicon, which I use to tell a story.”
*Read more in the link in bio
