Kanchan Balsé – Dream boats

Description

My paintings are intimate and surreal narratives of identity, relationships and resilience in families and communities. I start by laying down drippy washes, thick brush strokes and meticulous marks. As figurative imagery emerges from the early layers, I play with scale, perspective, color and a vocabulary of symbolic imagery. I continue to add and remove paint—sometimes over the course of many years—while rearranging expressive bodies and everyday objects in surreal landscapes. The changes occurring on the canvas mirror the mind’s mingling of experience, memory and imagination. I work to make ephemeral moments and complex emotions visible, trancending time, place, and culture. Identity, belonging, and individual and collective mental health are recurring themes in my practice. Bio: Kanchan Balsé has shown her work in solo and group shows in the DC area including The Joan Hisaoka Healing Arts Gallery, Gateway Arts Center, Studio Gallery, and the Popcorn Gallery at Glen Echo Park. She was selected for DC Arts Center’s Sparkplug Collective, is a member of Red Dirt Studios in Mt. Rainier and is active in visual arts programming at Rhizome DC, including curating group and solo shows. She enjoys being outside, talking to strangers, and salvaging materials wherever she goes.