18/10/17—21/10/17
Denis Kelly—Impeccable Defect
Opening reception:
6–8pm Wednesday 18th October
Exhibition runs:
Thursday 19th – Saturday 21st October
Curated by Valeria Ceregini
Denis Kelly’s paintings are characterised by hard edge colour motifs, predominantly painted flat on wooden surfaces. The paintings explore light, form and space in a playful response to the built environment and the wider designed world. Ultimately the intention is to allude to rather than describe, allowing curious forms to materialise and manifest – encouraging a slow investigation of the work.
Each painting is made on found wood on birch plywood. The found wood contains marks and abrasions that act as a counter to the ‘hard edge’ painting, offering an organic or poetic characteristic – a ‘figurative’ element in a field of geometry. The overriding ambition is one of simplicity and clarity, yet ironically, tension is created through the ambiguity of subject and form.
A suggestion of ‘movement’ into the space of the viewer is evoked where the motif meets the paintings’ edge. More recently, this idea has been developed with site-specific responses to architectural space.
Biographies:
Denis Kelly is an Irish artist based in County Kildare. He holds an MFA in painting from the National College of Art and Design, Dublin and a BA Honours Degree in Visual Arts Practice from the Institute of Art, Design and Technology Dún Laoghaire. He worked for a number of years as a graphic designer in Dublin taking up painting in 2007. Recent exhibitions include ‘Structure/Void’ at The McKenna Gallery Riverbank Arts Centre Newbridge – a result of the Kildare County Council Emerging Visual Artist Bursary Award, ‘Edge’ at the Municipal Gallery dlr Lexicon in Dún Laoghaire, ‘Describing Architecture’ at The Powerscourt Centre in Dublin. His work is part of the Office of Public Works collection, the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County collection and private collections in Ireland, the UK and US.
Valeria Ceregini is an Italian art historian, critic and independent curator based in Turin.
www.valeriaceregini.wordpress.com
Supported by Kildare County Council Arts Act Grant Scheme 2017
