The Criterion Collection

The acclaimed Los Angeles–based painter Kirsten Everberg has built a remarkable body of work fusing impressionistic and realist techniques to create beautifully rendered spaces that combine multiple histories drawn from photography, memory, and personal experience. Among her creations is a series of paintings inspired by Andrei Tarkovsky’s supremely phantasmagoric war drama Ivan’s Childhood (1962).

As today marks the fiftieth anniversary of the film’s release, we asked Everberg to discuss her work in relation to that of Tarkovsky, to illuminate the timeless impact of Ivan’s Childhood.

Shown: Dnieper River, Flare (After Tarkovsky), 2008

“I was drawn to Tarkovsky’s films through my own interest in the construction of space and the resonance of a place as it’s translated through memory and multiple histories, both real and fictionalized. The fluidity of my paint and the layered imagery I use contribute to creating areas of abstraction in my work.”

Shown: Dnieper River, Passage (After Tarkovsky), 2008

“I gravitated toward the film’s imagery of the present, such as the birch trees, and to Tarkovsky’s use of light, which is very much a painter’s light. With beautiful, shimmering moments of impressionist illumination, the figure-ground relationships decompose.”

Shown: White Birch Grove, North (After Tarkovsky), 2008

“Tarkovsky’s lines are rarely parallel, often diagonal, and his abandonment of any true horizon, his use of high and low angles, as well as the lack of distinction between day and night further complicate the experience and subvert your position as a viewer.”

Shown: Dnieper River, Reflection (After Tarkovsky), 2008

“This distortion of space forces one to question the nature of perception. Is it your memory of a space, your physical interaction with it, or a layering of the two?”

Shown: Interior with Globe (After Tarkovsky), 2008

“Tarkovsky stitches his visual narrative together in such a way that one could endlessly unpack it. Capturing these moments and removing them from the context of the film allowed me to take apart its already destabilized space.”

Shown: Interior with Chandelier (After Tarkovsky), 2008

“The final exhibition was much like walking through an alternate version of Ivan’s Childhood, where a reordering of these key elements had taken place.”

Special thanks to Brian Butler and Isha Welsh of 1301PE Gallery, Los Angeles.

All photographs by Fredrik Nilsen, courtesy of 1301PE.