Abstract artist Robert Kelly layers postcards, prints and posters
![Abstract artist Robert Kelly layers postcards, prints and posters](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/ybWUrDQtBQLkdCAvCqAdD8-415-80.jpg)
'Travels always insist on the unfamiliar against the familiar, the foreign against that which is known and comfortable,' says American abstract artist Robert Kelly, on the inspiration behind his paintings on view at Sophia Contemporary Gallery, London — his first solo exhibition in the UK.
The New York-based artist’s love of travel is clear in the carefully collaged layers of postcards, prints, letters and posters he has collected and assembled on canvas, in a painstaking process that can take up to several weeks to complete. He then paints briskly and confidently with oil using a trowel on top of this compilation of ephemera. The subtle effect of this technique suggests the traces of memory embedded in a surface – as in a palimpsest, or even in the skin.
What appear at first to be exercises in geometric abstraction are then disrupted by the narrative of what lies beneath. 'The dislocation and freshness of new contours in travel provoke us to find stability within sets of new relations. These paintings continually apply this will towards "terra firma" within the ambiguities of abstraction,' Kelly explains.
'Tropos IV', 2006. Courtesy of the artist and Sophia Contemporary Gallery
Kelly’s last solo exhibition was in Rio de Janeiro, where the Neo-Concrete art movement of the early 1960's 'struck me to the core sympathetically', and informs in part the grand yet sparse monochrome paintings of Black on Bone. Here, Kelly says he confronts various visual questions he has been grappling with for more than a decade, such as 'the constant intrusion of the decorative' – attempting to resolve them through the 'cipher of Constructivism, or some deeply set architectonic logic'.
His work has often been considered in relation to Russian Constructivism and the Dutch De Stijl movement, and at its booth at Frieze London this week Sophia Contemporary will materialise these connections, showing works from Kelly’s Nocturne series alongside rare works by Malevich and Mondrian. 'I never tire of looking at Mondrian and his will toward formal resoluteness, yet equally am moved by the constant humanism and mythic play in Malevich's work along with what seems to be such an organic connection between its iconic imagery and the cultural aspirations to transcend boundaries.'
Luchino's Nocturne II, 2014 (left) and Mimesis CIII, 2008.
INFORMATION
’Robert Kelly: Black on Bone – Selected Works’ is on view until 28 October 2016. For more information, visit the Sophia Contemporary Gallery website
ADDRESS
11 Grosvenor St
London W1K 4QB
Wallpaper* Newsletter + Free Download
For a free digital copy of August Wallpaper*, celebrating Creative America, sign up today to receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories
Charlotte Jansen is a journalist and the author of two books on photography, Girl on Girl (2017) and Photography Now (2021). She is commissioning editor at Elephant magazine and has written on contemporary art and culture for The Guardian, the Financial Times, ELLE, the British Journal of Photography, Frieze and Artsy. Jansen is also presenter of Dior Talks podcast series, The Female Gaze.
-
Commune’s sustainable personal care products look ‘quite unlike anything else’
Commune’s Somerset-made products stand out in the sustainable skincare crowd. Madeleine Rothery speaks with the brand’s co-founders Kate Neal and Rémi Paringaux
By Madeleine Rothery Published
-
‘Hedonistic and avant-garde’: Rabanne’s Julian Dossena on the legacy of the chainmail 1969 bag
Paco Rabanne’s 1969 chainmail handbag encapsulates the late designer’s futuristic, space-age style. Current creative director Julien Dossena tells Wallpaper* about the bag’s particular pleasures
By Jack Moss Published
-
Postcard from Paris: Olympic fever takes over the streets
On the eve of the opening ceremony of Paris 2024, our correspondent shares her views from the streets of the capital about how the event is impacting the urban landscape.
By Minako Norimatsu Published
-
‘Mental health, motherhood and class’: Hannah Perry’s dynamic installation at Baltic
Hannah Perry's exhibition ’Manual Labour’ is on show at Baltic in Gateshead, UK, a five-part installation drawing parallels between motherhood and factory work
By Emily Steer Published
-
Francis Alÿs plots child play around the world at the Barbican
In Francis Alÿs' exhibition ‘Ricochets’ at London’s Barbican, the artist explores the universality of play, even in challenging situations
By Amah-Rose Abrams Published
-
At Glastonbury’s Shangri-La, activism and innovation meet
Glastonbury’s south-east corner is known for its after-dark entertainment but by day, there is a different story to tell
By Rhian Daly Published
-
‘I am almost an anti-sculptor’: Dominique White on her Whitechapel Max Mara Art Prize show
The artist mines the ocean to explore Afrofuturism in ‘Deadweight’, opening at London’s Whitechapel and detailed in a new film
By Amah-Rose Abrams Published
-
Remembering Rusty Egan's Blitz Club: a place to 'avoid the mob and the homophobes', where the New Romantics were born
As he releases new vinyl boxset, 'Blitzed!', Wallpaper* meets DJ Rusty Egan to talk about London's scene-building Blitz club – the antidote to the late 70s punk scene and a hot-bed of experimental fashion
By Craig McLean Published
-
Suzannah Pettigrew's 'tender and ghostly' new show at Surrealist photographer Lee Miller's former home in East Sussex
London-based artist Suzannah Pettigrew's photographic stills create a snapshot of her Sussex coast childhood, conjuring up a hallucinatory world of memory
By Mary Cleary Published
-
The body, pleasure and play: Beryl Cook and Tom of Finland united in London
Tom of Finland’s homoeroticism meets Beryl Cook’s female-oriented camp as Studio Voltaire unites work by the two artists in a London exhibition
By Hannah Silver Published
-
Zanele Muholi celebrates South Africa’s Black LGBTI communities in LA and London
Zanele Muholi's portraits and sculptures are currently on show at Southern Guild Los Angeles and the Tate Modern, London
By Hannah Silver Published