Kyle
The Former Pollyannaish Man in Uniform
by Jenn Allen
Walking into Kyle’s indoor studio space, we were faced with a large
painting of a photorealistic astronaut falling with his hand extended.
Reaching up is a comic strip style woman who appears to be falling
upward. The two figures within the painting are portrayed in completely different styles, yet they exist together in the light void within
the canvas. Kyle has an amazing talent for combining different styles of
painting all within one beautiful image that appears to be some kind of
larger-than-life collage. He also explores the themes of devastation and
relationships through sculpture and shadow boxes, but we begin our
interview talking about the anonymous man falling through the sky,
his face shielded by the iconic glare of an astronaut’s helmet.
Do you collect magazines and comic books since you use them
for your sketches?
Yes, but I’m not responding to the narrative in the comic books—I
don’t even read what they’re saying. For example, I love people falling. If I find a good falling picture, it will go in a stack. I have stacks of
boxes. The pieces that are collages are mock-ups. If they work, I sell
them and make bigger pieces.
So you start off with the collage, and then you paint them?
The collage informs the painting. It’s always