​Born in Washington, D.C.; based in Brooklyn, NY

Kati Kirsch produces hypnotic paintings of inanimate objects, organic forms, and abstract shapes. Using a unique soft-focus painterly technique, the artist renders common items and motifs with a certain fuzziness—as if they are slightly shifting or rocking on her canvases. Deliberately smudged marks, layers of blurred imagery, and occasional found objects or mixed materials distinguish her oil paintings that are perplexing and delightful in their strangeness. Zooming in on familiar toys, insects, hearts, flowers, birds, diamonds, and the like, Kirsch focuses the viewer’s eye on oddities that are typically relegated to the periphery of human consciousness. Each work seems to land somewhere between figuration and abstraction; between a 21st-century hazy snapshot and a 20th-century Surrealist painting. The artist turns obscure moments that might otherwise be disquieting into scenes of joy and wonder—demonstrating what profundity can be found within the illogical and intangible.