KRISTEN KLOSTERMAN



Kristin Jai Klosterman was born in Ohio in 1977. She graduated from Chouinard Art Institute, Los Angeles with a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts. In 2014 Klosterman was named one of the five rising female art stars by Huffington Post. She currently lives between New York and Venice, California.

While Kristin Jai works in a variety of different mediums: painting, silkscreen and installation, she is probably most famous for her large-scale ethereal sculptures that resemble a whirlwind of petals. Their apparent fragility and lightness are delusive since the sculptures are made of metal. This interplay between the hard material and the delicacy of form is the heart of Klosterman’s project, who searches for the equilibrium of masculine and feminine energies in her art. The finesse of her work becomes further apparent when examined up-close: the petals are hung on dainty golden chains and are painted by hand in acrylic or oil. Klosterman’s jeweler precision is especially manifest in the pieces that she chooses to color in gold and does so by carefully applying fragile gold leaves.  

Another source of inspiration for the artist are different manifestations of the Fibonacci Sequence in nature that she mimics in her work. This beautiful shape can be found is seashells, pine cones, artichokes, and flower buds. Satellite images of storms also often contain the sequence, which is, perhaps, the reason for Klosterman’s swirling sculpture series to be titled Storm Sculptures. Storm series were commissioned for display in public spaces of California, Texas, Tennessee, and Minnesota and were exhibited in New York, Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Venice, and Tokyo.

Klosterman focused on art very young. She enrolled at an art school at the age of fourteen, at the same time initiating her career as a model, which led her to discover Italy and the cultural capital of America, New York. She recalls the Bruce Nauman 1968 sound installation Get Out of my Mind, Get Out of This Room to be the piece that had the most profound influence on her work. The installation made her realize that she, too, would like to challenge her viewers and make them participate in encountering beauty in unexpected places and forms. Klosterman says that even though she has always been creating, she only started feeling as an artist after selling her first work at the age of twenty (to no other than a renowned record producer Mario Caldato).

Kristin Jai Klosterman is a warm artist who welcomes discussion. She claims the best way to nurture her ideas and to expand her artistic horizon is through collaboration - something she realized not too long ago -, joking that her ego prevented her from doing so earlier. Klosterman had conceived projects with the director Gianluca Fellini, the light and sound artist Laddie John Dill, and the singer-songwriter Brandon Boyd. Her biggest giving back to the community became a collaboration with the societally conscious brand Tom’s Shoes, for which she created canvases with different patterns.

Klosterman’s Storm sculpture series actively dialogue with and transform the environment where they exist: light, shadow, weight, walls and ceiling become actors in their play. Wild Orchid and Neptune’s Dream are the two sculptures currently on view in our location in Palm Beach. We would love to invite You to visit, witness and be surprised at the interaction of their grandeur and the minutiae of its components, their ethereal beauty and steel strength. 

Selected Exhibitions

Georges Bergès Gallery, “Harmony In Color”, Solo Exhibition, New York City, September 2017

The Whitney Houston Biennial, “I’m Every Woman”, Group Exhibition, Brooklyn, New York, March 2014.

Silent Gallery, “Luminous”, Solo Exhibition, Venice, California, January 2014

Tarryn Teresa Gallery, “All Under One Roof: A Selection of LA Artists”, Group Exhibition, Los Angeles, California, April 2009

Gallery Gen, “Power”, Solo Exhibition, Tokyo, Japan, April 2008

Robert Sturman Gallery, Group Exhibition, Santa Monica, California, February 2006