About The Artist

LEA KELLEY studied at the Academy of Art in San Francisco. She also studied independently within the inspired association and guidance of other contemporary artists. Her world travels and exploration of many cultures has contributed to the depth and significance of her work. Her passion for art history, mythology and symbolic color  inspires an inquiry into the significance of meaning.

Kelley is the pioneer of the modern art movement refered to as Abstract Expansionism in which the artist initiates a work with a conceptual or symbolic self portrait and transcends through layers of painting, expanding the final work into territories of universal meaning. Her works can be found throughout the United States, Europe, and the Middle East.

Kelley’s evocative abstract paintings incorporate archetypal symbolism and color, facilitating a deep interaction with the observer’s personal, internal response to subconscious perception. Her paintings are generally multilayered in a process of emotional exploration and symbolic attributes beneath the surface of each piece.

Over decades, Kelley has created these richly textured emotional landscapes on various media: from wood, hand made paper and recycled cardboard to her present format on large canvas using acrylic, gold, and gold leaf.

Kelley’s black and white photography has been featured in numerous publications. Her Sumi characters have been used on book covers and corporate logos. Development of her whimsical Sumi brush characters began in 1989. She observed cafe patrons, creating their likeness in less than twelve lines. This minimalist approach to the human figure reflects her capacity to capture the intrinsic essence of human nature in her work.

Lea Kelley is the founder of the BELLINGHAM ART TANK a collective of artists, musicians, and poets, in Bellingham, Washington.

She also produces an ongoing community photo documentary project:

FACES OF BELLINGHAM

 

Statement from the Artist

For decades I have responded to the question “Why do you paint?” with a glib answer, “Because I have to paint.” I did not elaborate on this need to paint.

After years of sincerely contemplating that question, I can now answer it more honestly, with some clarification; I paint from an inner compulsion.

I paint because I am afraid to die.

I paint for the same reason most people create. It is an attempt to be part of something larger than our selves. There is an innate angst that compels us, as mortals, to deny our inevitable deaths. We build structures, establish religions, birth children, and erect monuments. We attach our personal significance to beliefs, worldviews, or systems, which we unconsciously hope will outlast our mortal coils.

I paint because the process transports me beyond the barrier of my fragile, limited body and lends meaning to living. Painting facilitates my need to connect with an existence larger than my own.

My artistic process is similar to the social process in which most of us participate to ensure emotional survival. We claim territory, then we share it with others to avoid aloneness within it.

I call this artistic process Abstract Expansionism. I have derived the term abstract expansionism from a combination of sources to represent my style of painting, which I feel is another step in the evolution of modern art.

If we look at abstract impressionism of the late 1800′s with artists like Monet and Pissarro, we find an art movement of tiny brush strokes to relay an impression of subjects. Moving into abstract expressionism of the mid 1900′s with artists such as Wassily Kandinsky, Franz Kline, and Willem De Kooning, we find large brush strokes depicting an expression of departure from the self and limitations of social structures.

Now we may continue into abstract expansionism where the brush stroke goes beyond traditional or established techniques into a more elastic inclination.

It is logical to me that, in living, we receive an impression, we cultivate an expression, then we participate in an expansion until we become part of our environment through a collective understanding to address the core fears of our existence and transcend them.

Carl G Jung said, “It is the function of consciousness not only to recognize and assimilate the external world through the gateway of the senses, but to translate into visible reality the world within us.”

Art movements are a broad representation of individual stages of developing human consciousness.

The “world within us” is influenced by our environment but it is not limited to the impressions we receive or confined to forms of expressions that besiege others with individuality.

To me, our consciousness is a collective instrument that can bring us together into a greater understanding, unified to translate our connection to one another “into visible reality.”

In my work through abstract expansionism I begin alone, with myself as the subject, reflecting on an immediate subjective experience or impression with which I am contending in the moment. I paint an image of myself on the canvas. This image may be a self portrait or a symbolic expression, incorporating my individual circumstances. I then paint layers over my own image (or experiential symbol) with colors or shapes to represent my experience in a more metaphoric sense —which allows others to enter my canvas or thought process through interactive symbols that may transcend my own limited references into an expansion of meaning.

I continue painting in layers, adding deliberation and visual dialogue in the form of universally experienced symbols such as color, shape, line, or even numbers that evoke a collaborative response through common association or mutual agreement of meaning. These, archetypal symbols, references, and representations are derived from my exposure to various cultures, philosophies, and subjects that unite human beings in collectively shared significance.

I am finished with my painting when it has departed from my self into a work that transcends my own existence in the realm of meaning for those around me, the larger collective of existence that continues as consciousness.

The product of abstract expansion is not as much of a concern to me as the process.

The painting is merely a vehicle for me to live while I am inevitably dying. It is a tangible, visual representation of my connection to that which I wish to believe will survive long after my physical body is capable of impression, expression, or expansion.

A Narration by the Artist Below:

At Canvas Gallery in Malibu, California:

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