These lyrical figurative paintings present a world where the simple dynamics of domesticity are transformed into moments of great sensuality and anticipation. Couples go about the everyday rituals of bathing, reading, and playing with pets quietly reveling in one another’s proximity. Diaphanous materials dissolve in reflected light as patterned areas frame her figures’ gestures. Remarkable passages of painterly invention give depth and richness to scenes of momentary tranquility.

The modernist figurative vocabulary Staver builds on was established by Bonnard and Matisse and Americanized by David Park and Elmer Bischoff. Luminous color, masterful drawing, and bold compositions give Staver’s paintings the authority of real experience. Her distortions, forced perspectives, and rough-cut compositions reflect the way we actually see the world. Staver’s take on relationships also rings true. Her couples are bound together in the quiet intimacy of shared surroundings and shared thoughts.

Staver often works from models, producing drawings and monoprints. These sessions yield a specificity of gesture that is incorporated into her imagined tableaux. Narrative threads and personal insights lead to invented scenarios for paintings in which everything is animated. People, trees, animals, tables, and chairs all pulse with an effervescent life and light. Through her painterly gifts and astute observations and insights, Staver turns the ennui of the everyday into the realm of poetic discovery.

Kyle Staver received her BA from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and MFA in Painting from Yale University in 1987. She also attended Camberwell College of Arts in London. Her work has been exhibited at Denise Bibro Gallery and Maurice Arlos Fine Arts in New York and at Hackett-Feedman Gallery in San Francisco. Ms. Staver is a recipient of the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award and the Benjamin Altman Figure Prize from the National Academy of Design.

Kyle Staver: Recent Work will be at Lohin Geduld Gallery through February 4, 2006. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 11 to 6. For more information and to see more images of the work, please see our website at www.lohingeduld.com.