Kevin Kelly

Further adventures with paper pulp.
So much of painting, it seems, is seeking out the correct level of resistance- finding a current that pushes back on you but will also reveal new currents available to you. This has to do with ideas/images, and formal concerns, but my usual inclination is to lean in first with process and material. I want to hack old systems. I want to see what I can get away with. I want to bump up against limits. I want to see things come together and fall apart in the same composition. Shout out to my daughter for being a good sport in this experiment.

"Anthropology"
colored paper pulp on felt
54"x32"
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Did you ever make god's eyes when you were a kid? Two popsicle sticks glued into a plus sign, with yarn weaving around in a radiating pattern? I can't remember exactly when and where I would have learned to do this, probably the super nice neighborhood mom who was always keeping kids busy with hands on activities. We certainty didn't learn about the indigenous traditions attached to these objects. It was all about the wonder of learning to manipulate ordinary materials until something mesmerizing appeared. I have been thinking about this kind of childlike responsiveness, especially when making color studies for paintings. I try to separate these color studies from the more academic preparory drawings that I make, sketches that are more about solving perspective and proportion problems. The color studies are more free form, searching for relationships, more meditative. These paper pulp paintings are based on the color studies, and also carry that mundane/otherworldly contradiction that I appreciate so much.
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"God's Eye"
colored paper pulp on felt
36"x22"
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