John Kelly
John Kelly is a performer and visual artist whose extensive dance and theater training led him to address cultural icons and political travesties during his experimental projects in New York and abroad. The artist has often channeled biographical yet personalized deductions of seminal artists including Egon Schiele, Caravaggio, and Joni Mitchell into cabaret or dance theater performances with accompanying video projections. In their realization, Kelly seeks to render the physical or character elements of each artist’s practice into his performance, seeking to match the “mystical presences and sense of drama” they exude. The Berlin Wall, AIDS epidemic, and Expressionistic films have also inspired his practice. His flat works revolve around self-scrutiny and autobiography, using self-portrait and personal journal entries to spur drawings, paintings, and photographs. In his offering of his own intimate experiences, Kelly seeks to recognize the intrigue and intricacies of collective histories.
Kelly has performed at The Kitchen, New York, Lincoln Center, New York, The Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, PS 122, New York, and Tate Modern, London, among others. Artworks have been presented at MoMA, New York, Art in General, New York, MACRO, Rome, Coreana Art Museum, Seoul, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, New Museum, New York, and Institute …
John Kelly is a performer and visual artist whose extensive dance and theater training led him to address cultural icons and political travesties during his experimental projects in New York and abroad. The artist has often channeled biographical yet personalized deductions of seminal artists including Egon Schiele, Caravaggio, and Joni Mitchell into cabaret or dance theater performances with accompanying video projections. In their realization, Kelly seeks to render the physical or character elements of each artist’s practice into his performance, seeking to match the “mystical presences and sense of drama” they exude. The Berlin Wall, AIDS epidemic, and Expressionistic films have also inspired his practice. His flat works revolve around self-scrutiny and autobiography, using self-portrait and personal journal entries to spur drawings, paintings, and photographs. In his offering of his own intimate experiences, Kelly seeks to recognize the intrigue and intricacies of collective histories.
Kelly has performed at The Kitchen, New York, Lincoln Center, New York, The Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, PS 122, New York, and Tate Modern, London, among others. Artworks have been presented at MoMA, New York, Art in General, New York, MACRO, Rome, Coreana Art Museum, Seoul, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, New Museum, New York, and Institute for Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, to name a few. Institutions including The American Academy in Rome, The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, The Guggenheim Foundation, and the Sundance Theatre Institute, among many others, have honored his accomplishments.
