KYLE STAVER (Suggested for Stage Six; Mastery)
Kyle Staver’s figurative paintings are dramatic, mysterious, sometimes tender, and often with a subtle humor. The figures (often with a female protagonist) are monumental and chunky, and created with a deliberate awkwardness and understated sophistication. “I’m first and foremost a storyteller. When I went to art school you couldn’t say that, you couldn’t say that you wanted to make paintings because you wanted to tell a story. But secretly that’s what I wanted to do.” Kyle paints myths and legends but they frequently end up as personal stories about her life (which lends welcome humanity in an often sterile post-modern art scene)