ANDREW BAE
GALLERY
KYLE KINSER
Kyle Kinser received his training from the highly-celebrated Swedish cabinet maker and wood theorist James Krenov. Kinser’s forms are simple and elegant, the work of a craftsman who believes that design must never dominate materials. Their clean lines result from hand shaping and sculpting, as power tools are shunned. The soft rich colors and textures of his furniture come from the natural grains of select woods, enhanced with oils rather than varnish or wax. Andrew Bae discovered Kinser’s work at a local studio and immediately brought him into his fold, encouraging the craftsman’s emerging style — a perfect marriage between the graceful asymmetry of Japanese design, and the honest, clean aesthetic of his Swedish training. The Kinser furnishings now reflect this creative union and include small cabinets, a credenza whose tabletop is fashioned from a cross-section slab of a log, and sublimated forms of Japanese tansu, or cabinetry, in which the Asian influences are most pronounced.
BACKGROUND & EDUCATION
1982 MFA, College of the Redwoods, Fort Bragg
1973 Western Illinois University
1951 Born in Chicago, Illinois
SELECTED COLLECTIONS
Helmut Kohl, Chancellor, Germany
United States Embassy, France
Family of Senator Paul Simon, IL
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2011 “Remains of a Day”, Andrew Bae Gallery, Chicago, IL
1997 The Woods at Hand: Furniture by Kyle Kinser from 1982 to 1997, Illinois State Museum, Chicago and Whittington, IL
1993 Craft Currents, Illinois State Museum, Springfield, IL
1992 Illinois Ozark Craft Guild Exhibition, Southern Illinois Iniv., Carbondale, IL
1990 Furniture as Art Form, Associate Artists Gallery, Carbondale, IL
1989 Craft Alliance Gallery, St. Louis, MO
1986 Hands at Work, John A. Logan College, IL
1985 Owensboro Museum of Fine Art, Owensboro, KY
1984 Kyle Kinser Cabinetmaker, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL