Kazhia Kolb is a keen observer. Wherever she goes, the Indiana artist keeps her eyes open and pencils handy to quickly capture people in the moment.
“My subjects choose me,” Kolb says in a British-inflected accent. “I felt a bit sorry for them all, filling up my sketchbooks. So, I began looking for a way to make them come alive. Linoleum block prints worked best.” Long a painter, she taught herself the process.
“Fugitive Moments” is a new exhibition of Kolb’s prints that runs through April 20 at the Evansville Museum of Arts, History & Science Begley Art Gallery. The figures in its 18 works — both active and reflective — have stories to tell.
Her people, flat and clear-cut, would be at home in the Bayeux Tapestry — on display in Normandy, France — depicting The Battle of Hastings in 1066.
“That’s because they’re influenced by Romanesque art, which has a tradition of expressive storytelling and gesture,” Kolb says. “I look for the gesture and build around it.”
This is evident in the music-making of “Quartet 2” and the activities of “Family Picnic.” Emphasizing a casual solitary subject, “Man Reading” is more reflective. Each work demonstrates that, for Kolb, “people are always active, always thinking.”
Others, like “Conversation,” look at changing social norms. Its subjects, a couple, sit together absorbed with their mobile phones. Yet, their feet are touching.
“Togetherness, but apart; that’s how society is going now,” Kolb says.
Her subtle, refined prints look more like paintings.
“I paint directly on the linoleum block, so you see all of my brushstrokes like you would in a monoprint,” Kolb says. “Then, I carefully place the paper over the painted surface.”
With a wry smile, she explains that the next step is right out of a kitchen drawer.
“I use a wooden spoon to press on the paper and transfer the paint from the surface of the block,” she says.
Raised in England, Kolb was inspired by art study at Sorbonne University and the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, France. She later moved to the U.S. and now lives in St. Meinrad, Indiana, with her husband. She created these prints in a sunny home studio.
“After years painting landscapes, movement and gesture are what I find most exciting now,” Kolb says.
