Bright Distant Objects
Kirsten Lofgren
June 26 – August 28, 2025
Opening Reception: June 26, 2025 6–8pm
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About the Exhibition
Inspired by Elisa Gabbert’s poem of the same name, this exhibition explores the questions: What is reality? What is remembering? Or, as Gabbert puts it, “What do we know of ‘the actual’? If things are just themselves, what do we know of things?”
As Lofgren travels through spaces, she collects tokens of her time there. Whether from her neighborhood, a favorite hiking spot, or a foreign country, each object—each token—is chosen for its striking characteristics: the sheen of a weathered branch, the cloudy depth of a salt crystal. Later, these tokens become anchors for her memories of those places. Lofgren prefers to have a physical object, with all its intricacies, imbued with the materiality of the place; however, sometimes she settles for a drawing or a photograph. When starting a new painting, Lofgren chooses a token and returns to it repeatedly for inspiration, remembering and re-remembering the experience of being in that place and the connection she felt to it.
Through the process of collecting, remembering, and reimagining, Lofgren transmutes places and experiences into a mirror universe of emotions and shifting perceptions. The paintings detail this other world, filled with color, deep chasms, and traces of the built environment. The work feels dynamic yet reserved, inviting viewers to reflect on and question their own experience of the spaces around them.
Kirsten Lofgren (American, born 1993 in Kingsport, Tennessee, based in Austin, Texas) spent her childhood outside, hiking in the forests, exploring the caves, and swimming in the creeks around her home in the Appalachian Mountains of Tennessee. She developed a deep relationship with the land and all the beauty and complexity it holds. She moved west to explore the deserts and mountains of Utah, where she studied painting and photography and earned her BFA in Studio Art from Brigham Young University in 2015. Her work investigates the memories and emotions that places we are connected to contain. Using repeating geometric patterns and altered colors alongside landscape elements, drawn from sketches and photographs, she creates new worlds using a visual language that communicates feelings of loss, hope, and awe. She has exhibited locally, nationally, and internationally, participating in shows at the ICOSA, Northern-Southern, and the Texas Women’s Museum, among others. She lives in Austin, Texas, with her husband, dog, and bunny, and is currently pursuing a Master of Fine Arts in Painting at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
