Elizabeth Kresch: Paintings in Light and Essence

Kofi Forson
February 2022

Self Portrait oil on canvas 20″x16″ 2018

Traditionally the art scene is inspired by a community, a world of friends and family which includes a longing for craft possessing the artist and how she manages with brush and paint on canvas, portraits that highlight one’s aura and essence. To be one in the continuation of a family tradition is a blessing in disguise. Elizabeth Kresch follows these traditions being born into a family with parents Albert Kresch and Patricia Middaugh, a couple known within the element of notability among New York art circles, who set their child forth onto an enlightened path. With a home in Brooklyn, they birthed and raised Elizabeth, a bright talent who gained her footing through the post-punk New York art scene. Using her friends from these scenes as subjects for her portraits, she paints their essence and in her land and seascapes she captures natural light. Her eye and hand coordination as steady as her mother’s, Elizabeth Kresch knows the human form and body. Precise are these articulations of her subjects rendered as compositional paintings which make use of light and dark with gradations of color. The element of charm and illuminations of beauty are constant while the viewer’s eye traces along the lines and shapes and color, gestures that complete each painting. Relevant to her body of work is the awareness of open spaces, evident in her love of travel, captured as locales and vistas. Overall, one wonders if it’s Elizabeth Kresch mirroring natural light or rather the outpouring of light from her very own artist’s body – a psychic call from her genes, history or incurable flair for enchantment.

Kofi Forson: Elizabeth Kresch, I noticed you from the postings your dear friend, poet and author Nicca Ray posted online. They were pictures that suggested a burgeoning friendship. But in actuality you’ve been friends for a long time. Much as your paintings feature portraits of friends, I find it appropriate to start here.

How long have you known Nicca Ray? How has the notion of celebrity between hers and your parents helped to accelerate your friendship? What are the downfalls, if any, of having to live up to your parents’ status?

Elizabeth Kresch: I have known Nicca since 1990. She entered my life as the girlfriend of my dad’s old Parsons MFA student Jesse McCloskey. I would see her at openings and we were soon waitressing together at Dojos. We’ve remained fast friends ever since. She was my hero for how she navigated life. She also happened to be a stunning beauty and was always there for me when I felt very lost a long time ago. We were quick confidantes from the get-go. There is definitely a thing we share of being seen when the impulse may be to hide which does no one any good. Of trying to stay true to our own work so we can develop as artists and writers when you’re constantly pulled to (and at times deeply want to) honor and field questions and presumptions about a parent at whatever level of celebrity. When a parent shines it’s hard to feel seen when any subtle aura is blotted out by their swirling world. I felt a LOT of pressure to be great. No matter how anyone might’ve tried to tell me – I didn’t believe that everyone started at the same place. I didn’t want my learning to be seen and would rather stay far away, hide or check out than to not immediately live up to some ideal I had. It’s only come up in recent years. I didn’t know her father was a great director until maybe a decade ago. It just never came up between us.

Forson: Your parents, Albert Kresch and Patricia Middaugh, artists in their own right, must have enjoyed an element of New York’s famous social circles.

Share with me if you can a quick story about your father’s interactions within these art circles, whether studying with Hans Hofmann or photographs he took of famous people.

Kresch: It’s hard to say! I don’t know how famous anyone was at the time. And I think who was famous to him would be very different from who people consider famous these days!

Forson: Your mother’s fashion illustrations have that “joie de vivre” appeal. The lines are elegant and lyrical. It’s that steady eye for precision that I see and sense in your very own work.

Tell me about your mother, your love for her, her influence on your work.

Kresch: My mom was a self-taught and self-driven woman.  I would watch her draw at the light box she built as a child and remember wishing she would close the lines she drew like my comics did. I finally have a sense that part of her genius was making her marks with such surety. Never a forced depiction of the subject though she had a great flair for dropping descriptive elements in~ texture, accessories – some landscape, building or maybe even a dog to illustrate the story of the garment. She kept it alive and open. It’s her energy and focus I think I try to stay close to. When she died in 1999 I was flooded with the weight of what a special if complicated bond we had. I knew all I could do was try to carry through the parts of her that I loved most. She fights to live within me even if some elements may never be understood or seen and that’s okay too. I hear old friends’ memories of the joy she brought to a room so that wasn’t my imagination and as it turns out the darker sides are within my own memory and experience. But her exuberance.. that’s gotta be a driving force for any art.

 Kyrsten oil on canvas 60”x36” 2019

Forson: The more amazing then to have been part of the BCK Fine Arts Gallery in Montauk’s exhibition “Fathers and Daughters”. Although your mother’s work was not present, it must have been such an honor to show with your father.

Kresch: It was! It was a first and I did not see it coming but the opportunity arose. It also meant a lot to show with Temma Bell and her father Leland who was probably in the most constant artistic dialogue with my father. They would talk almost daily on the phone for hours so when I’d try to use the phone as a teenager the line was often busy with them in heated discourse about painting. For the record Temma’s mother, Louisa Matthisadottir, is an amazing artist. This could easily have been a mother daughter show but that could be another!

Forson: What do you hold in high esteem most importantly about your father’s life as an artist? Is it pride, his steadfast dedication, his painting style?

Kresch: Well it’s his dedication most definitely but equally his ability to carry inspiration. And how he set the canvas on fire! It’s easy to forget that the flame of color and angle trumps all attempts at just molding an object into recognizable form. He was notoriously humble so I would not say pride. But maybe there’s a quiet pride in the steadfastness to protect one’s time and space for their art.

Forson: New York artists formally and informally claim an East Village, New York City status. Fair to say that’s where most of the “see and be seen” action was happening.

Your family life began in Brooklyn, where you were born and raised. What does that mean to you to be an artist, born and bred in Brooklyn?

Kresch: It’s hard to say! I always dreamt of living somewhere far away! Something kept me coming back (either to Manhattan or Brooklyn) every time I tried to move. I just felt I had unfinished business here. And I came to appreciate that I loved New York’s energy and the constant churning of music and art and the people I’d meet along the way.

Forson: What were your reactions to the late 70’s / early 80’s New York art movement? How did that form a basis for who you were becoming and was to become?

Kresch: It’s hard to step back and see that as an observer but I do know I would gallery-sit for my father’s friends sometimes and what was there remained largely representational. Basquiat was everywhere on the scene in the mid to late 80’s. There was a super pop element that arose and I was enamored with its brazen simplicity and vivid brash colors. My dad would say – “don’t go with the trends. They arise and fall and you’re left with nothing. Just keep going.” He also took me to see his students’ bands play when I was 12 and he held me tight when I gravitated towards a man I saw crossing the street towards us one day that year. When I asked who he was my dad just said, “That’s Warhol” and pulled me closer to his side. The shock of white hair and mesmerizing gaze was powerful. I’d like to say I incorporate the fervor of a whole scope of what I took in from that time but there’re only so many hours in a day to paint and draw what I see while also keeping even footing. So I just keep going when and where I can.

Noah oil on canvas 30″x24″ 2020

Forson: There was a strong performative element to the movement. I felt living “in a strange way” back then was a performance.

How important was the No-Wave movement to you? Did Lydia Lunch or anyone else from that world make an impression?

Kresch: I don’t remember specifically but it was all in the waters as a teenager in 80’s New York! I was all over the place. And as far as No-Wave – I met Mark C at CBGB’s when I was 21 and he dragged me to a bunch of shows I didn’t even know the term “No-Wave” would come to or did apply to. I just didn’t know. But I did know it was all extremely satisfying and I felt I had found my people. Since you mentioned – I met Lydia later in the mid-90’s and was impressed with her ability to nail people, institutions and ideology to the wall AND uplift other artists with equal aplomb. If one even hopes to be free to let their artwork carry their message there just isn’t room for apologies. It’s hard enough for any of us to hear each other these days. Art needs to strike at the heart. Agreed!

Forson: I recently saw a pic on your Instagram account featuring you and the members of Live Skull.

First of all, what did the punk movement mean to you? How, then, did you last through the post-punk movement?

Kresch: What punk meant to me? For a 12 year old in braids and prairie dresses I was very angry. So there was a natural kinship. When I was 15 my friends and I went to see our friend’s uncle’s band out in Rockaway at a high school they played at every year. It was the Ramones. After that I saw them wherever I could. And I’d land at CBGB’s often in the next year as a boyfriend’s band tended to play there. It was always the speed sometimes weight was enough and energy of the music I could lose myself in that I loved. I used it to drive my artwork.

As for post-punk it had to happen!

It’s honest and still magically violent – got more “bubbling” for when you need to flesh out the three chords or pull even those apart. I used to get the Knitting Factory compilation tapes when I could find them. With those you could be sure to get something pretty far from anything on the radio.  I like what I’ve always liked. I just pile more on. I don’t shed much.

Forson: Your art training started with the New York Studio School. What did you learn there as far as art fundamentals?

Kresch: I learned that time spent in the studio has value. In that short year I feel I got better work done than ever cumulatively. And make it sing! Throw yourself at the canvas or paper like your hair’s on fire.

Forson: You then studied at Sarah Lawrence College. What was your college experience like, as compared with kicking your Doc Martins into the New York City sidewalks?

Kresch: I’m so grateful to have had the opportunity to have studied there. There were FASCINATING classes to delve into. I was like a pig in shit at that school. I think everyone deserves to be a student and teacher in any context in their life. Both experiences have kept me afloat. As to your question – I don’t think one would’ve meant the same without the other.

Forson: How were you then beginning to formulate your own style? What artists were you paying attention to at this time?

Kresch: Rouault. Matta. Frida Khalo. Balthus. Toulouse-Lautrec, Matisse and Miro were childhood favorites that still make me smile. It’s hard to say – I don’t know that I really emulate any of them. You just keep your loves in your blood and hope some drips out.

Beth and Star oil on canvas 40”x30” 2020

Forson: Detailing of your work is primarily through portraits, land and seascapes, street scenes and compositional paintings inspired by literature and film.

Nature of your portraits, as I mentioned in the beginning, is based on that art life experience of capturing one’s friends as a portrait.

Who are these people and how do they find their way into your paintings?

Kresch: Friends, honoring the people in my life, people who’ve stirred the social waters that I’ve managed to get to sit for me but always a personal connection. It’s been rare that I work from someone I hardly know. There has to be some deep resonance for me. I like to find the quiet parts of people that deserve recognition while keeping the overall tone of their public self. It’s so easy to be in our own heads these days. Let’s see what’s heroic among us, unlikely characters and every day saints maybe with a sprinkle of a villain here and there. I like a rich soup. My quest for balance strives beyond the constructs of a single painting – I come to the point where I’m searching for the next subject to balance what I’ve got so it’s a constant seesaw. The viewer sees what they see. And I love that too. It’s not just the story as it relates to me.

Forson: My initial reaction looking at your portraits, “The Deep Blue Couch” series is to think of Alice Neel.

What is your interpretation of Alice Neel’s work? Did you see her exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art?

Kresch: Yes! What a vibrant lifescape she’s created! So prolific! I was impressed with her commitment.

Sunrise Looking East on Houston oil on canvas 18”x20” 2019

Forson: Your knack for painting is strong; the applying of the brush with color to the canvas. The gestures and color play are imaginative. The lines are bold yet playful. Articulating of painterly thought is quite excellent.

What do you hope to do best when you paint? What are you saying? What do you hope to portray?

Kresch: First and foremost capture light. If the sun didn’t rise I wouldn’t be painting and if the world wasn’t adorned with people & nature there would be nothing for it to cast shadows on which brings me to drama. Because the more I get on the canvas the more I can hope to keep it out of my life – even if it’s the challenge of subtle tones and contrasts in which case I lean into depth – What I hope to do is draw the viewer into a story. That we were here! That all this happened! And hopefully along the way they can relate. And what I’m saying is – Let’s value each other. And better yet let’s inspire.

Forson: You are quoted as saying your paintings are like diaries. If these paintings are shapes and focal points from your day to day life, how would you describe your life so far? Are you capturing beauty, or illuminating the essence of the people around you?

Kresch: I aspire to capture beauty AND illuminate the essence of the people around me! I don’t know if I’ll ever have the perspective to describe my life so far. I’m still in it. But it certainly feels like quite a ride on rich terrain and I guess that’s where the diary part enters. In at least one case I made a promise to someone important to me that I’d tell their story. So for now at least there’s this painting. It’s like that. My view from the window on this train; I’m happy to be here.

To Sir: The Girls oil on canvas 20″x16″ 2016

Forson: I love the gradation of color in your paintings. I feel this is best achieved with oil paint. How the colors bleed into each other within arranged shapes, as opposed to monochromatic blocking. I see this mostly in your compositional work where you make use of light and dark. How are you able to achieve this means of correspondence in your use of color?

Kresch: Thank you! I just try to find the glimmering line between opposing tones. Sometimes it’s an actual line and sometimes it’s more elements of a shape. But I try to keep the whole canvas in mind even if it’s the negative space holding its own sometimes. I subscribe to rhythm.

Forson: In your close range portraits you are able to use color to capture mood. Do you use color based on the aura and temperament of your subject, meaning the kind of psychical light the person gives off? It’s almost as if you’re painting the aura of each person.

Kresch: I like “psychical light!” Definitely! I just attack the canvas hoping that what I get from the person comes through with all the technical elements of the painting  – the brushstrokes, the oils I happen to have on hand – I have to work quickly to pull the forces to come together before it loses the essence. If I get the aura that’s my luck! Some work out better than others. Again it usually has to do with my resonance with the subject on whatever level.

Avignon ’89 oil on canvas 24″x30″ 2013

Forson: For your street scenes and land and seascapes, there’s a gloss or smooth surface to each painting. Is this due to the overwhelming aired space and availability of light? Is the light reflective of your inner glow mirroring the light in nature?

Kresch: Not sure about the gloss… but I will just say likely! And I love the thought that the natural light in my work might be a mirror of that within me. Maybe it’s the scenes pulling forward the best in me.

Forson: What is the history behind you working from the model? How much faith do you have in your ability to capture each angle of the human body?

Kresch: My father used to bring me to his life drawing classes at FIT as a child and I would just sit and wait bored. I remember the first time he gave me a sketchpad. Felt like he was entrusting it to me. Also Saks Fifth Avenue would send boxes of the clothes they needed drawings of to the house and my mother would have fashion models come. I remember Spike and Molly in particular. Molly would give me piano lessons and we almost adopted their dog when they moved. There was intensive life drawing while I was at the New York Studio School and by the time I got out of college, family friend Minerva Durham had started a school on Spring St. (still going. She’s a force of nature.) and I would go to try to keep my practice connected while I was figuring out living. I don’t know about faith in the ability to capture angles. I know there are certain parts and angles I dread but rise to the challenge with. But it’s a constant exploration and the real question is – Was I looking today and did I do my best? And it’s always about the drawing as a whole anyway. But I know I’ve got certain strings to tune. I have faith that overall it’s better than yesterday.

Forson: You hold this life drawing series with model Nellie Blue. Tell me about this and how people if they’re interested can get involved.

Kresch: Nellie is fantastic! She intuitively slides into poses that create interesting structure on a page and brings her own flair. Though she’s not the only model I work with for these sessions. I’m lucky to have had great people to work from! I try to keep a variety of subjects – again- the balance. People can email me at elizabethkresch@gmail.com with Life Drawing in the subject line if they want to be put on the list for future sessions or to inquire about modeling.

Elizabeth Kresch’s website →

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Kofi Forson is a writer, poet and playwright living in New York City. He blends his love of cinematic art, poetry and philosophy with journalism through in-depth formatted interviews with Neo-Expressionist New York artists, musicians, models, Hollywood celebrity and reviews of books, and art movements like Brexart. He has written for New York Arts Magazine, Whitehot Magazine, Talent, Armseye, Poetrybay, D/RAILED and Gainsayer.