Artist Talk with Denis Kelly STRUCTURE/VOID

On Thursday 15th December, artist Denis Kelly will be present at the McKenna Gallery, Riverbank Arts Centre to discuss his practice and his current exhibition Structure/Void. The conversation will touch on the subjects of the artists’ path, history of hard edge painting, the process of developing an idea, the painting practice itself and the gallery space and site specificity – responding to architectural space.

 The exhibition incorporates a site specific wall painting and a series of abstract paintings characterised by hard edge colour motifs, predominantly painted flat on wooden surfaces. The work explores 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.

The paintings may seem like rational geometric exercises but on closer viewing reveal incidental bleeds, tears, indentations due to the influence of the uneven support (found wood surface). The 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.

Artist Talk takes place Thursday 15th December at 6.30pm

with guest Speaker Gay Brabazon