WORDS/PHOTOS: MIA MEDAKOVIC
INTERVIEW: KEVIN KELLY
Kevin Kelly was born in upstate New York and graduated from the Pratt Institute in 1982. He has been living and working in Brooklyn’s neighborhood of Dumbo since 2007. His work has been shown across the United States, including New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Santa Fe and Westport, and is in numerous collections, including of Simon Cowell in Los Angeles.
His piece Solar Powered Cell Phone Charger was installed in Brooklyn Bridge Park as part of the 2012 Dumbo Arts Festival. His work is also in numerous public spaces including the NYU Medical Center. He completed a commission for a 13 ft high version of his dice double helix sculpture entitled Double Down in 2018 . His 10 meter high permanent outdoor sculpture DodecaCaryatid was installed in Markham, Ontario in December 2016.
His sculpture has also been featured in films and network tv shows such as The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Duplicity, Arthur, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice and Remember Me.
Sculpture is often described as a conversation with material. How do you choose your materials, and what do they allow you to express that other media cannot?
I actually love the materiality of sculpture that I see in a lot of artists’ work. Ceramic, wood, metal and stone in their raw forms are beautiful and inspiring and I love to see works using them well. The work becomes inseparable from the materiality. And in many cases the materiality becomes the dominant impression of the piece, more so than the design. Which is all well and good! For the most part, I have taken a different approach. And whether I am using metal fabrication, cast resin or 3D printing, the works are focused more on color than on materiality. Usually the pieces are designed to be painted, as I feel that strong color is an important part of my work. Color is just so powerful and emotional. And I find it resonates more with me currently than the subtle beauty of raw materials, however exquisite they may be. Of course I may change my mind about this tomorrow.
Many of your works seem to balance strength and vulnerability. Is this duality intentional, and how does it reflect your personal or artistic philosophy?
Interesting question. I don’t know the answer offhand to that, so it must be unintentional. Or perhaps that reflects something in the mind of the observer. Every person can have a different idea about a particular piece of mine and I am always interested to hear them, as sometimes they illuminate the piece for me in a way I never thought of before.
Do you see your work as more emotional, conceptual, or spatial—or a combination of all three? Or how would you describe your work?
I am very much a work in progress as an artist and I don’t feel like the work I have done so far even scratches the surface of all the worlds I would like to create. So it is hard to define it as I feel I might break through into another direction at any time. One quality I would like to give my work, even as it evolves into different forms, is a sense of inevitability.
When someone encounters your work for the first time, what do you hope they feel—or question—before they try to interpret it intellectually?
One of my favorite moments as an artist occurred when I brought a large plywood sculpture out onto the sidewalk in a desolate section of Brooklyn where I had a studio on the ground floor. I was using a power sander when I looked up and saw three tough looking characters were walking up to me. One guy said “Hey man- what is that shit?” I replied that it was an abstract sculpture. He considered the piece a few more moments and then said “That shit is pretty cool.” He gave me a little nod and off they walked.
On the other end of the cultural spectrum, around that time I went to the one of the salon sessions at Louise Bourgeouis’ house. Louise was in her nineties at the time and didn’t hear very well. People would take turns bringing their work up and putting it on her desk and telling her about it. She was very engaged and generally had a lot to say, positive or not. She could be a bit curt and quickly bored if something did not appeal to her. My turn came and I brought a small model for the same sculpture I had on the sidewalk that day up to her desk and told her a bit about it. She just nodded and didn’t say anything. She just kept slowly rotating the piece in an incredibly long silence. She finally looked at me and said “Would you like some Scotch?“ She then said to her assistant in a loud whisper that we all could hear; „I think this is the best piece we’ve seen all day.“
While both of these experiences were extremely gratifying, I would be hard pressed to say which one I found more so. To me, the random person walking down the street is just as challenging and rewarding to reach as the most sophisticated art professionals. The trick for me is to find a way to appeal to both at the same time.
What are you currently exploring or curious about for your future work? Are there new materials, scales, or ideas you feel drawn to next?
I have recently been exploring painting more than ever. The idea I am trying to express with this most recent group of paintings is to create a tension between 2-Dimensionality and depth. I am using flat planes of color to achieve a 2-Dimensional feel which on second glance becomes 3-Dimensional. Or perhaps you see depth first and then flatness and then switch back and forth in your mind.
Where does a sculpture usually begin for you – with a concept, a sketch, or directly with the material?
Definitely a sketch. I have a great many stetchbooks I’ve filled over the years with ideas and now sometimes I look at them and realize that now I know how to realize them. So keeping a sketchbook and sitting down to see what happens when I pick up a pencil and start drawing is a very important part of my process.
How does light interact with your sculptures, and do you consider lighting during the creation process or only at the exhibition stage?
I usually imagine my pieces being large scale outdoor public installations in natural light. So I try to allow for the random changing lighting that would occur in that type of situation.
What does discipline mean to you in the context of sculptural practice?
Well a lot of great artists, generally painters and writers, have famously been abusers of various substances. But there are no great sculptors who fall into that category. Sculpture is hard work and requires time, dedication and discipline.
The theme of the February issue of RYL Magazine is “The Circle Around the Heart.” How do you define love, and in what ways does it shape your artistic process and the forms you create?
There is a famous quote, generally attributed to Mozart: „The essence of genius is love.“ And that really gets to the heart of the matter better than I ever could.
