Kurt M Rostek

“Many have criticized me by saying I haven’t developed a style,” Kurt M Rostek reveals.  He has an easy rejoinder:  “Style is a trap of limitations.”  But no one should be misled into believing that Rostek’s oils are unidentifiable.  In fact, it is evident that his personal history has shaped not just what he paints but how.  An eye-opening year-long roadtrip throughout his native Canada and the U.S., a struggle to find himself through the medicines he must take, and a longtime commitment to Buddhist meditation come together in chalky images of real-world objects that are abstracted internally and processed into seemingly personal mandalas, symbols of a self perceiving self as much as the external world.  All of Rostek’s colors seem primary even when there is more variance of shade, so bluntly do they present themselves, so clearly are they differentiated from each other. 

His is the kind of work that one carries out into the world; his take on a subject helps you see the subject anew.