James Kelly
While at first James Kelly’s paintings were heavily geometric, sharing similarities with predecessors like Piet Mondrian, he later began to adopt a free flowing, gestural style of Abstract Expressionism. This new style was exemplary of the San Francisco art practice of the time that looked to employ painting as the visual component to Beat generation poetry. This relationship resulted in distant figuration, swirling motifs, and a representation of verbal expressions on the canvas. Kelly is often regarded a an action painter, characterized both by his uninhibited strokes and heavy impasto.
Over the span of Kelly’s fruitful career his work has been displayed at the Place in San Francisco, Action 1, Merry-Go-Round Building at the Santa Monica Pier, San Francisco Art Association Gallery at the California School of Fine Arts, Stryke Gallery in New York, East Hampton Gallery in New York, Albright College in Reading, Pennsylvania, Long Island University in Brooklyn, Westbeth Gallery in New York, The Oakland Museum in California, San Francisco Museum of Art, Wiegand Gallery at the College of Notre Dame in Belmont, California, Laguna Art Museum & San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the San Francisco School of Abstract Expressionism. He was awarded the Ford Foundation …
While at first James Kelly’s paintings were heavily geometric, sharing similarities with predecessors like Piet Mondrian, he later began to adopt a free flowing, gestural style of Abstract Expressionism. This new style was exemplary of the San Francisco art practice of the time that looked to employ painting as the visual component to Beat generation poetry. This relationship resulted in distant figuration, swirling motifs, and a representation of verbal expressions on the canvas. Kelly is often regarded a an action painter, characterized both by his uninhibited strokes and heavy impasto.
Over the span of Kelly’s fruitful career his work has been displayed at the Place in San Francisco, Action 1, Merry-Go-Round Building at the Santa Monica Pier, San Francisco Art Association Gallery at the California School of Fine Arts, Stryke Gallery in New York, East Hampton Gallery in New York, Albright College in Reading, Pennsylvania, Long Island University in Brooklyn, Westbeth Gallery in New York, The Oakland Museum in California, San Francisco Museum of Art, Wiegand Gallery at the College of Notre Dame in Belmont, California, Laguna Art Museum & San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the San Francisco School of Abstract Expressionism. He was awarded the Ford Foundation grant to work at Tamarind Lithography Workshop in Los Angeles, the National Endowment for the Arts Grant, and the Peter and Madeleine Martin Foundation for the Creative Arts grant. Kelly’s work is part of several permanent collections including The San Francisco Museum of Art, The Los Angeles Museum of Art, The Harvard University Art Museum, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.
