Photograph by Don Freeman
BIO/ARTIST STATEMENT
BIO
Raghubir Kintisch (b. 1955, New York, NY) is a multidisciplinary artist whose work explores the confluence of spiritual and creative practices. Their richly colored and textural oil paintings on paper are based on sketches made by using collaging and patterning techniques that explore alternative universes, nature, and the inner mental terrain.
Kintisch earned a BFA in Painting from Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, RI in 1976, and an MFA in Social Practice from Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles, CA in 2017. The artist has participated in exhibitions at La Foret Museum, Tokyo, Japan; LAXART, Hollywood, LA; Keystone Art Gallery, LA; Robert Berman Gallery, LA; Mary Karnowsky Gallery, LA; Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena; Winslow Garage, LA; Kleinert-James Gallery, Woodstock, NY; Proxy Gallery, LA; MutMuz Gallery, LA; Angels Gate Cultural Center Gallery, San Pedro, LAUNCH Gallery in LA, and Tryst Art Fair in Torrence; among others.
In 2017-2018, Kintisch participated in a long-running group show at the Museum of Modern Art in N.Y. titled Club 57: Film, Performance, and Art in the East Village, 1978– 1983. In the summer of 2023, Kintisch was a Byrdcliffe Cottage Artist-in-Residence and received funding from the Pollack-Krasner Foundation to attend. In 2022, they were a Byrdcliffe Communal Artist-in-Residence for visual arts and in 2021, a recipient of the Silver Sun Foundation Residency through The Secret City - also in Woodstock, N.Y. Their most recent work consists of oil paintings created as diptychs or triptychs, mixed media collage, and tonal paintings in India ink; all of which utilize texture, vibrant color, and reflected geometry and pattern. Kintisch currently lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.
ARTIST STATEMENT
My work is an ongoing investigation into the innate instincts and predicaments intrinsic to the human experience using nature and organic form as both inspiration and metaphor. My projects delve into the realm of mystical abstraction through a fusion of photography, collaging techniques, and oil painting. Drawing inspiration from diverse sources such as paranormal and mystical events, nature and the supernatural, and self-portraiture and personal experience, I create mental terrains that evolve from deep transformative experience.
Exploring the confluence of creative and spiritual practices is the polestar of my art practice. Research and development of my projects involves photography and collage as integral components of the creative process. I amalgamate fragments of images and utilize the patterns that result, giving form to the sketches I use for my paintings. This playful re-iteration accelerates my creative process and forces an accidental abstraction, the surprise result of this phase. The subject matter lies somewhere between representation and abstraction and also references my past relationships with the decorative arts and a devoted yoga practice.
The paintings themselves are richly colored and textured - a result of working with undiluted oil paint and palette knives. A vibrant and dry matte surface results when this kind of mark making is absorbed directly into the surface of the paper. I generally paint in groups of two or three and prefer to present them as diptychs, triptychs or in much larger multiple groupings. I have found that a personal iconography develops during the course of making a series that, like an alphabet, must be seen in relation to other parts of itself to make the most sense.