Kirsten Stoltmann: Motivational Posters and Meditation Sculptures

Kirsten Stoltmann has a tendency of getting things wrong. For her second solo exhibition with Sister, Motivational Posters and Meditation Sculptures, she is desperately trying to get it right. This new body of work employs over-used and abused tropes of swinger pornography, suburban craft, sports car masculinity, meditational sculptures and Tourette’s like poetics. In an attempt to exercise New Age sentiment through self-loathing and inspirational denigration, Stoltmann's efforts at reflection are always thwarted by her passive aggressive sincerity, humor, and self-depreciation.

Stoltmann’s newest sculptures take the form of large abstract contemplative effigies while her collages, also blown out of proportion combine unsavory mixtures of antagonistic imagery with messages such as “ENOUGH IS ENOUGH, HOW IS YOUR NUTS?” The highly sexualized content of these works make them monuments to sex; desperate, far reaching and often lonely, they symbolically hold the weight of group worship much like the swinger advertisements that are incorporated into an abundance of her collages.

Kirsten Stoltmann was born and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She received her B.F.A. from University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee in 1991 and her M.F.A. from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2002. Recent solo exhibitions include Wallspace Gallery, New York and Donald Young Gallery, Chicago. Recent group exhibitions include a two-person collaboration with Amanda Ross-Ho at Guild and Greyshkul, New York; Galerie Christian Nagel, Berlin; Overduin and Kite, Los Angeles; Bellwether, New York, Underground Film Festival, New York; Suburban, Chicago and the Institute of Visual Arts, Milwaukee.

SISTER Presents at COTTAGE HOME:
Motivational Posters and Meditation Sculptures
Kirsten Stoltmann