Robert Kelly's 'The Pearl Diver and Other Stories...' opens at Charlotte Jackson Fine Art
The First Art Newspaper on the Net    Established in 1996 Tuesday, October 15, 2024


Robert Kelly's 'The Pearl Diver and Other Stories...' opens at Charlotte Jackson Fine Art
Tales of Lakshmi, Abundance, 2023, Mixed Media on Panel, 17 x 14 inches.



SANTA FE, NM.- There are stories everywhere. The story of the artist. The story of the magpie. The story of the stone on the beach. The story of the painting. The story of the goddess. The story of the buried city. The story of the sun-bleached bone. And our own story – which itself is really the weave of a thousand stories, flaring out, radiating around us, brushing up against the other stories of the world.

But often enough, we don’t hear them, don’t notice. Get tangled in noise, lose the thread. This is when sometimes the world reaches out to us, offering a spark, a reminder. It might be a crow landing at your feet. It might be a particular stone on a beach.

It might be a painting: Aging paper, layered, overlaid, ghosted with images and text; cut, covered, framed and highlighted by thick, sen- suous black geometric forms. Through the yellowed layers, a strangely winged figure emerges. Around him, half-revealed, half-concealed by those black forms, strange shapes and unknowable words.

This is The Pearl Diver, one of the pieces included in the eponymous exhibition, The Pearl Diver and Other Stories which brings Santa Fe native, Robert Kelly, back to New Mexico with his first exhibition here since 2012. This exhibition includes works from several different themed series (Mimesis, Tales of Lakshmi, Boneyard, Nocturne, El Senor, and Ash to Ash) though all of these are created with Kelly’s unique process.

This starts with a canvas surfaced, layer by layer, with up to 30 strata of paper, coated and affixed with a viscous polymer, gridded at right angles, and then overlaid with the special old, archival papers that Kelly finds and collects on his travels. These papers can be old movie posters, advertisements, handbills, newsletters, placards, announcements. Often, they are printed with text in a variety of languages. These papers are always faced backward so that their surface is facing toward the verso.

This, as Kelly says, is “history looking back on itself, like Vermeer painting himself, painting the woman in the window.” Finally, the piece is glazed with an oil-based medium, and then it is ready for Kelly’s oil painting of forms. The geometric forms themselves are exquisitely precise. Balanced tonally with the faded paper surfaces and yet completely integrated and responsive to the complex patterns that have been gridded and aligned beneath. There is an intricate dialogue at work between the forms and the layers, between past and present.

Metaphors abound: History’s enigma. Time’s cipher. Collage. Archeology. Palimpsests. Ghosts. Phantom limbs. The strata of a cliff-face reading off geological ages. Stone masons. Stories. And each of these metaphors is not exclusive of the others, but rather, interconnected, as in the Buddhist metaphor of Indra’s net. This net is a vast, universe-spanning web with a multifaceted jewel (or pearl) at each connection point. Each jewel in the net contains the reflection of every other jewel. And each reflected jewel contains the reflections of all the others. Infinite. A representation of how all phenomena in the universe are connected and interpenetrating.

Multifaceted and nuanced as they are, there are many ways to know Kelly’s work. Kelly’s modernist sensibilities hail back to influences such as Bauhaus, De Stijl, the Constructivists, the Supremacists. Kelly finds himself fascinated by a sort of seamless meeting place between the “highminded formalism” of Mondrian and the “soulful purity” of Morandi. However, Kelly’s roots in New Mexico could offer nearly as important a perspective on his work. The region’s layered history is palpable in its architecture and landscape. And beyond even the human history there is a significance, a something more, that seems to resonate in its natural light and colors.

This is where the experience of Kelly’s work distills toward essences. With global references and sources, with sensibility meeting precision of skill, perhaps what pulls the viewer closer is something both unique and universal. Kelly has said, “Finding a stone (on a beach walk) draws our attention through form, shape, polish and substance, and suggests a connectivity created by this momentary flash of recognition. A pause. Paintings call at us this way….”

Stories. The work of Robert Kelly offers us reminders of connectivity, pulling us back into a world of meaning, where even the most mundane objects and experiences are freighted with significance. Without being in any way narrative or figurative, these paintings act as jewels in the net – the many layers, stories, refracting, reflecting. They remind us of the mystery and complexity of the world, and of our own stories, our place within the web.

Charlotte Jackson Fine Art
–— Michaela Kahn, Ph.D.

Charlotte Jackson Fine Art
"Robert Kelly: 'The Pearl Diver and Other Stories..."
September 1st, 2023 - September 30th, 2023










Today's News

September 1, 2023

U.S. seeks to block recovery of Titanic artifacts

Henry Timms wants to tear down walls at Lincoln Center

Richard Ekstract, magazine publisher with link to Warhol, dies at 92

Investigators seize 'Marcus Aurelius' statue from Cleveland museum

Bonhams to offer collection from leading Asian art dealer & collector

Decades after dictatorship, Chile mounts search for hundreds who vanished

Oil painting by Louis C. Tiffany brings $108,900 in Ahlers & Ogletree sale

The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston announces appointment of Erika Umali as Curator of Collections

Museum Folkwang to exhibit classic masterpieces by Marc Chagall, Henri Matisse, Joan Miró and Pablo Picasso

Venice Film Festival: No Zendaya as the strikes change the picture

First North American museum exhibition dedicated to Korean Experimental art on view at the Guggenheim

Mandy El-Sayegh transforms spaces at Thaddaeus Ropac London for her first solo exhibition there

Patti LuPone sings for the LuPonettes

Cousins (and co-authors) write a love letter to New York

Sadie Dupuis confronts her darkest memories on Speedy Ortiz's new LP

'Reggie Burrows Hodges: Turning a Big Ship' features new suite of works at Addison Gallery of American Art

"Claire Morgan: I only dared to touch you once I knew that you were dead" now open at Galerie Karsten Greve

Robert Kelly's 'The Pearl Diver and Other Stories...' opens at Charlotte Jackson Fine Art

In Chicago, keeping the heritage of Black dance moving

'Timothy Barr: My Nature' exhibition of new paintings now on view at LewAllen Galleries

Two-part solo exhibition by Swiss artist Rebekka Steiger begins today in Zurich and next week in Lucerne

Extraordinary writers find new meaning in Stanley Museum of Art collection

deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum awards 24th Rappaport Prize to artist Tomashi Jackson

The Benefits of ADP Payroll: Streamlining Your Payroll Process




Museums, Exhibits, Artists, Milestones, Digital Art, Architecture, Photography,
Photographers, Special Photos, Special Reports, Featured Stories, Auctions, Art Fairs,
Anecdotes, Art Quiz, Education, Mythology, 3D Images, Last Week, .

 



Founder:
Ignacio Villarreal
(1941 - 2019)
Editor & Publisher: Jose Villarreal
Art Director: Juan José Sepúlveda Ramírez
Writer: Ofelia Zurbia Betancourt

Attorneys
Truck Accident Attorneys
Accident Attorneys
Holistic Dentist
Abogado de accidentes

Royalville Communications, Inc
produces:

ignaciovillarreal.org juncodelavega.com facundocabral-elfinal.org
Founder's Site. Hommage
to a Mexican poet.
Hommage
       

The First Art Newspaper on the Net. The Best Versions Of Ave Maria Song Junco de la Vega Site Ignacio Villarreal Site Parroquia Natividad del Señor
Tell a Friend
Dear User, please complete the form below in order to recommend the Artdaily newsletter to someone you know.
Please complete all fields marked *.
Sending Mail
Sending Successful