Tim Kent

Tim Kent depicts psychologically charged interiors and unsettling dreamlike vistas. In his paintings, architecture and landscape are fused with gestural brush strokes and elements of abstraction but the picture plane is never flattened. Rather, the viewer is drawn into a deep space constructed by Kent’s characteristic, symbolic perspectival grid lines. A reference to the Renaissance system used for constructing pictorial space, his perspectival lines evoke contemporary technological, mechanical, and social systems such as electric grids, building elevation lines, internet networks, social networks, the flow of politics and information, and displays of power.

The artist’s imagery has evolved over the course of several bodies of work including A World After Its Own Image (2016) Dark Pools and Data Lakes (2018) and Enfilade (2020). His most recent series, Enfilade, made during the first few months of the Covid-19 pandemic, explores the concept of enfilade—the alignment of rooms that have a direct line of line of sight from one to another. The term also refers to an alignment of gun fire in which a round of ammunition is fired simultaneously, in a uniform spread, with the intention of hitting a target through a statistical spread. Playing with the tension between the seen and unseen, Kent conjures maze-like interiors in which adjoining rooms appear to unfold endlessly in one direction, but the viewer cannot glimpse what is around the corner. Sparse but opulent, these domestic spaces are infused with a cold grey-green light that evokes an ominous sense of tension, a powerful emotive effect that Kent achieves through a restrained palette of predominantly white and grey. Kent’s interiors have the feeling of being haunted and tap into issues of class, access, privacy, and consumption that pervade the built environment.  

Kent was born in Vancouver, Canada in 1975, and received a M.A. from the University of Sussex at West Dean College and B.F.A. from Hunter College. While a student at the West Dean he was hired to create renderings of historic homes throughout England, sparking his fascination with architectural spaces. He has exhibited his work widely both in the United States and internationally. His recent solo exhibitions include Slag Gallery, New York; Patrick Mikhail Gallery, Montreal; and Pilevneli Gallery, Istanbul. Kent’s work has been covered in many publications including Art Critical, The Brooklyn Rail, New Criterion, Huffington Post, Hyperallergic, Fine Art Connoisseur, Lapham’s Quarterly, Le Monde diplomatique, Architectural Digest, and Elle Décor. He lives and works in Brooklyn.