Kyla Kegler
Kyla Kegler is a highly accomplished artist and educator hailing from Buffalo, NY. Her artistic practice has been significantly influenced by her experiences working with Bread and Puppet in 2006 and living in Berlin from 2008 to 2016. During her time in Berlin, Kegler co-founded the underground theater group Zuhause from 2011 to 2013 and served as a founding teacher at Project Yellow Yoga. She also earned her MA in Solo/Dance/Authorship from the prestigious Art University of Berlin in 2015.
After returning to Buffalo in 2016, Kegler earned her MFA in Studio Art on a full fellowship from the University at Buffalo in 2018. She has since embarked on a number of impressive creative projects, including the House on Fire Show, a virtual collaboration with over 40 teens from across the USA that explores how the climate crisis affects young people today. The show premiered at the Buffalo Institute for Contemporary Art in 2021.
Kegler has also launched her curatorial project, Agatha's, an exhibition and performance space located in the chapel of St. Agatha’s Catholic school in Buffalo. This project has showcased the works of numerous emerging artists, providing them with a platform to showcase their talents.
In addition, Kegler has developed her current performance project, Mountains, an ongoing episodic puppet soap opera that has been performed at various venues, including Artpark in Lewiston, NY (2020), Torn Space Theater in Buffalo, NY (2022), and Undercurrent Gallery in Brooklyn, NY (2022).
Kegler currently shares her vast knowledge and experience with the next generation of artists as an adjunct professor at the University at Buffalo, where she teaches painting. Her inspiring work has earned her a reputation as a truly innovative and talented artist with a unique voice that resonates deeply with audiences around the world.
Shop Kyla Kegler’s work at The Monocle during the month of April.
What is the biggest inspiration for your pieces over time or for your current work and what is your technique for creating.
My paintings explore the optical and emotive qualities of color and form and the historical roots of color theory in utopian, spiritualist, and avant-garde movements. Informed by the fundamentals of pioneers in these realms, such as Johannes Itten, Josef Albers, Bridget Riley, Agnes Martin, Emma Kunz, Hilma Af Klint, Bauhaus, The Bloomsbury Group, The Memphis Group, and Anthroposophy — I approach painting as a formulaic method for understanding relationships between color and form, and as an experiment in manipulating perceptions of dimensionality and aesthetic pleasure. I’m interested in moments of slippage that confuse reality and illusion.
Deep Fake is a series of paintings I began working on in 2018, based on the study of color theory and historically sacred relationships to form and color. The paintings in Deep Fake reference the notion of “fake depth,” named after the term Deepfakes (a portmanteau of “deep learning” and “fake”), which refers to synthetic media in which a person in an existing image or video is replaced with someone else’s likeness. This technology can be used to manipulate truth perception and destabilize seeing as evidence for believing. The Deep Fake paintings are created with solid opaque fields of color that, based on the principles of color theory, in proximity to one another, suggest the illusion of depth and overlap. I use gouache and mineral paint for their ultra matte quality to create surfaces that maximally absorb rather than reflect light.
What is your favorite & least favorite part about professional art?
My favorite part of being an artist is what I learn from making the work and talking to people about their experiences with what I make. My least favorite part about art is when money limits what I can afford to make.
What is your go-to work/creative playlist
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2XQDGygscEElaabe0QGXQz?si=693d796481b04e89
Who/what are some of your key artistic influences
The drawings of little kids; playing dress up with my sisters when I was a kid; somatics; the work of: Laurie Anderson; Ligia Clark; Hilma Af Klint, Josef Albers, Johannes Itten, Peter Schuman/Bread and Puppet Theater, Meredith Monk, Phillip Glass, Oskar Schlemmer, Christopher Guest, Jennifer Coolidge; David Sedaris, Missy Elliot, Cocorosie, Méret Oppenheim, Bridget Riley, Agnes Martin, Emma Kunz, The Bloomsbury Group, The Memphis Group, Anthroposophy, Gaga, Dada.
If you weren't an artist, what would you be
A somatic therapist.
If you ruled the world, what would your first order of business be
The climate crisis.
What is your dream project?
I think I'm making my dream work now — collaborative experimental operatic performances with a generous and brilliant team; and paintings that give me space to meditate on aesthetic pleasure. I follow projects that push me to keep asking, learning, and refining my big life questions.