Kira Nam Greene is a New York-based painter known for combining ethnographic imagery, meticulous realism, and layered patterns. Greene has expressed her commitment to painting as a way to explore feminism, materialism, and beauty.

Biography

Greene was born in Seoul, Korea and lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. She received a BFA from

San Francisco Art Institute San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) was a private college of contemporary art in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1871, SFAI was one of the oldest art schools in the United States and the oldest west of the Mississippi River. Approximately ...

and an MFA from the

School of Visual Arts The School of Visual Arts New York City (SVA NYC) is a private for-profit art school in New York City. It was founded in 1947 and is a member of the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design. History This school was started by ...

. Prior to becoming an artist, Greene earned her PhD in Political Science from

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

and a degree in International Relations from

Seoul National University Seoul National University (SNU; ) is a national public research university located in Seoul, South Korea. Founded in 1946, Seoul National University is largely considered the most prestigious university in South Korea; it is one of the three "S ...

Career

Greene has exhibited at

Sheldon Museum of Art The Sheldon Museum of Art is an art museum in the city of Lincoln, in the state of Nebraska in the Midwestern United States. Its collection focuses on 19th- and 20th-century art. History Sheldon Art Association In 1888, The Sheldon Art Assoc ...

, Muskegon Museum of Art,

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

Salisbury University Salisbury University is a public university in Salisbury, Maryland. Founded in 1925, Salisbury is a member of the University System of Maryland, with a fall 2016 enrollment of 8,748. Salisbury University offers 42 distinct undergraduate and 14 ...

Wave Hill Wave Hill is a estate in the Hudson Hill section of Riverdale in the Bronx, New York City. Wave Hill currently consists of public horticultural gardens and a cultural center, all situated on the slopes overlooking the Hudson River, with exp ...

Bronx Museum of Art The Bronx Museum of the Arts (BxMA), also called the Bronx Museum of Art or simply the Bronx Museum, is an American cultural institution located in Concourse, Bronx, New York. The museum focuses on contemporary and 20th-century works created by ...

, Noyes Museum,

A.I.R. Gallery A.I.R. Gallery (Artists in Residence) is the first all female artists cooperative gallery in the United States. It was founded in 1972 with the objective of providing a professional and permanent exhibition space for women artists during a time i ...

, Accola Griefen Gallery, Lodge Gallery, Kiechel Fine Art and Jane Lombard Gallery. She has also been a visiting artist and lectured at the Brooklyn Museum,

Maryland Institute College of Art The Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) is a private art and design college in Baltimore, Maryland. It was founded in 1826 as the Maryland Institute for the Promotion of the Mechanic Arts, making it one of the oldest art colleges in the U ...

Union College Union College is a private liberal arts college in Schenectady, New York. Founded in 1795, it was the first institution of higher learning chartered by the New York State Board of Regents, and second in the state of New York, after Columbia Co ...

, SFAI,

, and Rutgers University. She teaches in the MFA and BFA programs at Parsons (The New School). where in 2018 she was the MICA Geneviève McMillan/Reba Stewart Endowed Chair in painting. Also in 2018, she was a semi-finalist for the Outwin Boochever painting prize and a Bennet Prize finalist for women working in figurative painting. In October 2021, Greene was a finalist for the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery Outwin Boochever painting prize, whose winners were due to be announced on April 29, 2022.

Work

Greene's work primarily focuses on the feminist exploration of painting via a combination of abstract patterns and representational forms. This strategy seeks to "defamiliarize natural space and invite extended, sensual encounters with the paintings, where diverse representational modes coexist, and where the body appears as if seen for the first time." Instead of human figures, her earlier work used still lifes, especially food items, as allegorical stand-ins for the female body. Art writer and curator Emily Colucci commented about Greene's use of food and bodily imagery, "Greene's painting not only provided a twist on Trump's notorious pussy-grabbing comment, but it also hinted at the papaya's vaginal qualities. The painting, particularly in the context of its title, humorously references the long legacy in feminist art of using food as a stand-in for the body as seen in works like Marilyn Minter's 100 Food Porn paintings." Spurred by recent developments in the politics in America, Greene paints women in creative fields, posed to echo historical figurative paintings. Interviewing them and researching their working lives generates ways to render pictorially—through allusions, icons, objects, patterns, and symbols—the rich personhood of the subjects. Jorge Daniel Veneciano, former Director of the

, commenting on the vibrancy of the still-life genre in the era of transnationalism and globalism, states, "Greene's recent painting provides an arch interpretation of the still-life genre and the promises it makes. The pun in the title, ''Archway to Happiness'', may or may not be her intention, but it supports a reading of the work as satirically commenting on the very rhetoric of the genre. It also foregrounds the transnational nature of still lifes, carrying allusions to Celtic, Moorish, and pan-Asian cultures."

Influences

Greene has expressed how the Pattern and Decoration movement of the 1970s and '80s had a large influence on her work. Her adoption of decorative patterns as the political statement of the marginalized also informs the status of her subjects. Greene states that her political science training informs the deep research into her paintings' subjects. Greene has studied under

Brett Reichman Brett Reichman is a painter and Professor at the San Francisco Art Institute where he teaches in both the graduate and undergraduate programs. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he has lived and worked in San Francisco since 1984. His work came to ...

at SFAI and

Jake Berthot Jake Berthot (1939–2014) was an American artist whose abstract paintings contained elements of both the Minimalism, minimalist and Abstract expressionism, expressionist styles. During the first 36 years of his career his paintings were entirel ...

at SVA, both of whom she cites as having influenced her approach to painting.

External links

Kira Nam Greene's Website

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Greene, Kira Nam Living people Feminist artists American conceptual artists Women conceptual artists American artists of Korean descent 21st-century American women artists American people of Korean descent School of Visual Arts alumni San Francisco Art Institute alumni Stanford University alumni Seoul National University alumni People from Seoul Year of birth missing (living people) American women painters