| For more information about this article or gallery, please call the gallery phone number listed in the last line of the article, "For more info..." |
June Issue 2007
Art League of Hilton Head on Hilton Head Island, SC, Features Works by Mary Kelly
Red is a warm color. It is the color of passion,
the color of love. It's not surprising that artist Mary Kelly
named her exhibition of paintings to be held at the Art League
Gallery in Pineland Station, Red. It's been her favorite
color since childhood and her paintbox consistently is in need
of a refill of the color red. The show is on view from June 12
- July 7, 2007.
Kelly considers the Art League show the culmination of her "red" period. She has been exhibiting her art for over 30 years, and was looking to experiment and bring something new to this show. It is the result of technical experimentation in the use of watercolor to make it behave more like acrylic. Kelly describes her experimentation like this: "I wanted to explore watercolor in a new way - use it on canvas or stretched watercolor paper - push it into being more like acrylic, combining it with acrylic and forcing it to give up frames, mats, and glass, and to make it stand on it's own."
Kelly began experimenting with a series of red paintings - both large and small - which combined aspects of watercolor and acrylics, using canvas and paper grounds, both sized and unsized. The effect is dynamic and bold, bright and very red.
Kelly has planned two workshop/demonstrations in the Art League Gallery. The first is titled, Comparing Traditional Watercolor Techniques to Watercolor on Canvas. This will be on June 12, 2007, from 5-7pm. The second workshop will be about Using Non-Traditional Techniques for Texture, also at the Art League Gallery on June 23, 2007, from 1-3pm. Both these sessions are free and open to the public.
As a professor of art and an author, Kelly had the background and the credentials to undertake this experiment and make it succeed brilliantly. She holds a BFA in painting from St. Mary of the Woods College in Indiana, an MA from Rhode Island School of Design, and an MFA from Syracuse University. She taught painting at Tompkins-Cortland Community College in Dryden NY for over 25 years. She has lectured at many colleges and universities and on Hilton Head Island, she teaches art courses at the University of SC-Beaufort, the Art League Art Academy and paints regularly with the Apple Pie Painters. Kelly has had more than 21 one-person shows in commercial and university galleries and museums in New York, Boston, Mexico, and St. Petersburg, Russia.
In addition to her painting, Kelly is also interested in weaving, has a collection of textiles, is the author of four books on folk textiles and has served as Tour Lecturer for the Textile Museum in Washington, DC. (Incidentally, red is the primary color of most folk art and folk textiles).
For more information check our SC Institutional Gallery listings, call the gallery at 843/681-5060 or visit (www.hhal.org).
Carolina Arts is published monthly by Shoestring Publishing
Company, a subsidiary of PSMG, Inc.
Copyright© 2007 by PSMG, Inc., which published Charleston
Arts from July 1987 - Dec. 1994 and South Carolina Arts
from Jan. 1995 - Dec. 1996. It also publishes Carolina Arts
Online, Copyright© 2007 by PSMG, Inc. All rights reserved
by PSMG, Inc. or by the authors of articles. Reproduction or use
without written permission is strictly prohibited. Carolina
Arts is available throughout North & South Carolina.