Baroque (2012-2014)
Midnight in the Huntington Library Cactus Garden, 2014, oil, acrylic, and gold leaf on canvas, 108 x 132 inches (overall)
Baroque(2012-2014)
The scale of the paintings on canvas situates us in an immersive landscape where flora takes on the presence of sculpture. Kushner achieved the animate quality of individual plants, including quince, phlox, and Queen Ann’s lace, by working from life in Waldoboro, Maine. Memories of the Huntington Library Botanical Gardens, near his childhood home in California, inspired the renditions of cacti and aloe. Kushner’s inimitable use of color freely ranges across metallics, pastels, and near-neons. The painted plant forms materialize out of passages of marbleized, aqueous grounds, dense bands of color, and luminous patches of gold and palladium leaf. Textiles, Japanese screens, and modern painting inform these compositions and the play with space.