Local artist Chris Kelly has returned to the East End and will launch his first solo show at the new Colm Rowan Fine Art Gallery on Main Street in East Hampton. The show will open Saturday, May 29, and continue through Sunday, June 20, daily from 10 AM to 5 PM or by appointment. A meet and greet with the artist will take place on Saturday, May 29 from 4 to 7 PM.
The first solo show post-Covid, Kelly’s opening will launch the 2021 season at Colm Rowan Fine Art gallery. The “geometric abstracts” exhibition, sometimes described as “hard-edge minimalism,” features all new paintings created in the last year and a half. The first paintings in the series were purchased by Richemont North America Inc. and currently hang in their corporate headquarters on 5th Avenue in Manhattan. The paintings in the exhibition are all 60″ x 48″ canvases created with oil paints and pencil. Additionally, the exhibition will include never before seen works on paper (smaller scale) done in acrylics and pencil, as well as abstract wood sculptures.
Kelly’s artist statement is centered around The Deconstructed Golden Ratio.
“Deconstruction is a term that shows up in various places related to the arts, such as in literary criticism or in architecture (as ‘Deconstructivism’), but I believe that all art is about deconstructing something and then rebuilding it. We observe, analyze, take apart, reimagine, and then use those various parts as building blocks for a new work of art. Such is my process, and for this series of artworks I am deconstructing the hidden geometry of nature and exploring how it connects humanity to the natural world. Specifically: the Golden Ratio, the Fibonacci sequence, and fractals — though not the same, they are closely related,” said Kelly.
The geometric abstracts series has previously been shown at the Guild Hall 83rd Artist Members Exhibition, Gallery RIVAA in Roosevelt Island, NYC, and Gallery Richardson in Brooklyn.