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kelly kievit bio
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| bio |
Kelly Kievit lives and works creatively in Portland, Oregon. Current studio work focuses on painting approaches that incorporate oil, varnish, marble/limestone dust, and glazing techniques to produce visually tactile abstract surfaces within the two-dimensional format.
The Circus Performer and The Early Aviator serve as a points-of-departure for evolving iconography. An exploration into the common attributes of these two characters is the central focus of the work. Both exhibit a devil-may-care attitude and adventurous spirit driven by and from within themselves and display superhuman abilities in nature—
pushing the limits of physical prowess or the gravitational laws in flight while creating a life and passionately thriving in the narrow margins that exist at the edges of society. Each is adept at diffusing the boundaries between grounded and ungrounded, between the mundane and the heroic, between the static and kinetic yet maintain the pathos of the doomed or freakish.
The imagery in the work combines simple forms within a landscape referent. There is the horizon line where earth and sky meet, a solid yet intangible spaciousness, and the things that connect the two: a tightrope, dirigibles, early airplanes, nosecones, a radio tower, juggling balls, the pointed tip of a clown hat, plumb
The psychological aspects of suspension, temporality, transience, and ungrounded space are translated into color fields evidencing fragments of pattern and form—
both line and shape gain loft in a space that challenges familiar distances between ground, elevation, and temporal perception.
Kievit's educational involvement resulted in an undergraduate degree in Photography/Critical Theory from Kansas City Art Institute and a Masters Degree in Sculpture/Performance from Arizona State University. Her studio work is grounded in classic formalism, yet she diffuses the definition of traditional painting methodology by approaching the canvases with a sculptural application of materials that emphasizes both process and finished art.
Kelly Kievit is represented by Froelick Gallery, Portland, Oregon; Davis & Cline, Ashland, Oregon; and Ballard Fetherston Gallery, Seattle, Washington.
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