Deep Introspection: The Art Portfolio of Kyla Slobodin
Kyla Slobodin is an artist currently based in Victoria, BC, who works in a diverse range of traditional media including ink, paint, photography, and writing. Kyla’s current body of work is both abstract and figurative, sometimes drawing on slice-of-life subject matter and other times evoking moments of deep introspection.
I really like Kyla’s painting series “traces” -- the works in this gallery are abstract, featuring heavy strokes of dark-coloured paint; blocky canvases totally encased in textured pigment. There’s something bodily, organic about these canvases. The artist’s use of white and reddish tones sometimes suggests the biological, reminiscent of Caroline Boileau’s watercolour paintings. Occasional geometric interventions feel meaningful, monolithic, on these randomly patterned backdrops.
It’s interesting to note how these strictly abstract works sit alongside Kyla’s series of ink tracings, most of which feature human faces and figures, along with detailed objects. There’s something satisfying about the contoured lines that make up these ink works. The artist’s line art serves as a path for the viewer’s eye to take in the complete image.
