Art. It's what's for dinner.

There comes a point, when looking through Kalina’s body of work where you are tempted to leap into the painting and rescue the sad little pixies and imps who populate her worlds, but I strongly advise against it. Do not be fooled by their helpless, pleading eyes or their delicate and dangerous predicaments. I am quite certain they are malevolent and/or poisonous. And I don’t believe they are in any danger. I think they ARE the danger. Like carnivorous flowers or neon poison frogs, Kalina’s characters appear benign, even sweet, but it is all simply a well-crafted performance meant to lure us into imprisonment or death.

I have read of Brujos in ancient Mexico who court allies from the spirit world to call on for power and knowledge. I imagine them to take the shape of these beings. Some remain half hidden in the negative space between plants and stones but others parade around in brightly painted suits of fish and elk, disarming their stalkers through feats of total lunacy. Like the allies of old, they cannot be judged on their appearance alone. They are a serious and deadly business.

Kalina’s creatures are tribal witchcraft, Avalonian sprites, vexing homunculi, and wicked conjurations from the ancient part of our collective unconscious that makes us dream of spiders, tentacles, and bee stings. Hers is a world of the animus, the archetype, and the alchemy of nature and perception. Like all things of power they are at once beautiful and deadly. Look but do not touch.

-Paul Culp