Ritual Significance

These paintings and prints focus on themes of protection and vulnerability, questioning the results of repetitive patterns of behavior, both aggressive and seemingly benign. Medieval armor and aquatic defense mechanisms assume allegorical significance, as does the juxtaposition of conceptual patterns with realistic forms. South American reptiles become warriors while lotus and poppy seed pods symbolically offer glimpses of the great issues of our times: religious difference and the drug trade. Stylistically, loose vibrant brushstrokes collide with precisely focused intervals of structured color, accentuating the point of contact between distinctly different approaches to the medium. The graphic work teeters on the verge of abstraction, with a rich variety of textures dancing in and around the forms. Ahni Kruger is a painter/printmaker whose images form a provocative blend of conceptual and perceptual approaches. Her practice of addressing formal visual challenges on location in the landscape informs her studio work. Ahni dips into Nature as source or muse—but not dictator—to fortify her allegories about global consciousness and political misadventure.