Kaye Donachie

I saw Kaye Donachie's work a few years ago in a write-up online and was immediately drawn to it. In my previous post I mentioned Luc Tuymans, and Donachie is quite similar to him in regards to her color palette and treatment of the figure and the space around it. She also uses print, video, and photo media as source materials as well. The interesting thing about Donachie's work is in the subject matter she paints. A large part of her work references 20th Century counter and subcultures, namely hippie communes. She uses found images or documentary footage as references. Monte Verità, a "commune of artists, writers, vegetarians, pacifists, nudists, Freemasons, feminists, Theosophists and bohemians who settled in the hills above Lago Maggiore in 1900" was the inspiration for many of her paintings and she seems to be focused on capturing the romantic and idealistic atmosphere of this Utopian community. The way the figures are placed in their surroundings makes you scrutinize them as an outsider.

To me, not only is her subject matter fascinating, but her compositions are remarkable. This photo shows how small they are in person, which is very impressive to me, since these are so compositionally sound yet so small.



-Jennifer