Wyoming-born artist Kaidi Dunstan captures the mysterious language of the human form. Fascinated by how bodies communicate ever-fluid emotions, Dunstan’s objective in her drawings is to bring out how we relate to one another. Illuminating the subtle rhythm of bodies, selves, and our environment, Dunstan presents enigmatic scenes that resonate with our desire to understand the connection between body and soul in her signature reduced language, described poetically by Dunstan in an artist’s statement as a “thicket of bafflement.”
With a focus on the human body, Dunstan's work looks at the shifting language she finds in our bodies and selves. "We try to connect to other bodies in different ways, building bridges between us, some fleeting, others complex. I think of myself as a wanderer and this is the territory I investigate; it's here I find oddness and mystery." Drawing is always the touchstone and way into the work. She finds invigoration and adventure in making a drawing, much is happening because the process is so immediate. "Drawing as an activity is intense, challenging, frustrating, uncomfortable and one has to embrace confusion and uncertainty. It's a way of thinking and moving through a difficulty and that is its reward."
Concentrating on relationships within groups of figures, or of single figures to their backgrounds, Dunstan creates multi-layered, dynamic works. To achieve this, Dunstan often sketches a form onto a piece of tracing paper and then transfers it to paper or canvas. This process of layering creates movement within her compositions. Representing the struggle between the particular and the general, Dunstan’s arms, hands, and faces dance across the scene in fluid, inexplicable waves echoing the internal tension between these physical parts and the spirit inside. Hands, arms, and faces become emphasized. Pairings, small groupings and making use of repetition are common threads. She often takes drawings apart and puts them together in a different way. A building up of surface and texture results from the process of putting down and taking away, erasing and redrawing, picking up bits that remain, and restating in a reduced way
Born in 1953 in Jackson, WY, self-taught artist Dunstan began drawing and creating objects from a young age. Impassioned by art, she continued with her studies in Oregon, Colorado, and London, England. Currently, she lives and works in London. She has been exhibited ten times in Jackson, WY as well as Diane Nelson Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA. Dunstan was awarded the Visual Arts Fellowship Award in 2002 by the Wyoming Arts Council.