the artist

Ken Kewley

Photo Credit: Molly Holland

Ken Kewley

Easton, PA

Ken Kewley

http://www.kenkewley.com

Studio Painting IV (4) and Studio Painting VI (6) are invented portraits of the room where Kewley paints.  What excites Kewley in the world is brought into his studio.  The painting process starts with making color shapes.  A cardboard straight edge is used to form shapes.  This method creates a clean line and that big jump from one color to the next is what Kewley finds so exciting in the world.  Sometimes shapes remain shapes.  All the juxtapositions of objects in everyday life make up abstractions, as much as they do, things with names.  Sometimes shapes turn into patterns.  In Kewley’s neighborhood of Easton, Pennsylvania, people use trellis, a framework of light wooden or metal interwoven or intersecting bars, chiefly used as a support for fruit trees or climbing plants, around their houses and this crisscross pattern appears in Studio Painting IV (4) and Studio Painting VI (6).  Sometimes shapes turn into objects such as tables, plates of fruit, and other things.  In Kewley’s studio, he started constructing little houses, trees, figures – still life objects out of corrugated cardboard.  In doing so, Kewley can bring the visual world outside, in miniature, into his studio and then ultimately into his paintings.  From here, things are put in, taken out, arranged and rearranged, composed until it all feels right.

Studio Painting IV (4) and Studio Painting VI (6) are part of a six-series set.  These paintings are based after French artist Georges Braque’s series, with the same name, and are a coming together of the drawing, collage, and sculpture.  In the process of creating these painting, Kewley tried to keep things as adjustable as the small drawings by constantly repainting and adjusting (the quick drying acrylic paint allows this) in order to get closer to the feel and directness of quick drawings.  The objects, shapes, and patterns of the studio enter his work.  These paintings surprise Kewley as much as he hopes they do the same for the viewer.

Gallery Photo Credit: Thomas Deans Fine Art

Fast Facts

Name: Ken Kewley

Website: www.kenkewley.com

Place of Birth: Battle Creek, Michigan

Education:
BA in Art, 1976 – College of Creative Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara

Significant or special training:
Night Watch Person at the Metropolitan Museum of Art from 1980 – 1990

Notable or memorable instructors or mentors:
Al Kresch
John Goodrich
Ben Huberman
Stanley Lewis

Particular field of study or class work:
Painting
Drawing

Major influences/admired artists:
Georges Braque
Cezanne
Picasso
Matisse
Corot
Uglow

Favorite materials or media:
Paint (acrylic and oil)
Painted paper collage
Ballpoint pen
Pencil
Corrugated cardboard
Masking Tape

School or university affiliation (when Convention Center acquired artwork):
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

Gallery Representation (when Convention Center acquired artwork):
Rothschild Fine Art, Tel Aviv
Thomas Deans Fine Art, Georgia

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