Cosmic Being
(2020 – 2022)
These pieces are self-portraits as they are about me both internally and externally. For example, SPLAY: Self-Portrait Under Gaslighting was made parallel in my studio to working in a job for a year under untenable conditions and is a concrete rendering of me making sense of psychological distress and how it felt in my body.
When making mixed-media works, I utilize adaptive equipment invented in my studio, as well as chalk straight-line and other accessible materials that can be found in a hardware store. Playing off structure to create dimensionality, I use fluid liquids and transparent mediums to depict scale renderings of my own body and movements through space and time.
The video collaboration …give me a tension! (below) with Naomi Moser is described here.
Mixed Media Work
Kelly McConnell, SPLAY: Self-Portrait Under Gaslighting (2019-2020), butcher paper, duct tape, chalk, sumi ink, acrylic mediums, specimen pins, 120"x92" • Photography by Golaleh Yazdani, Able Baker Contemporary
…to unravel the bind
Maine College of Art 2020 Faculty Triennial
The selected group of work, created by 13 Maine College of Art faculty, speaks to the generative nature of art to navigate the shifting experience of daily life and propose transformation and inventive exploration as a means to explore the world as it presents itself.
“In 2020, we will weather the swells and tensions of subterfuge, irreversible change, and societal forces that tend toward self-destruction. Now more than ever, we need the thinking, making, and imagining that drives artists to make work both because of and in spite of these challenges, ” says guest curator Ellen Y. Tani, Boston-based art historian and independent curator.
Kelly McConnell, Observed Through Veils (2020), Acrylic media, Polyester Film, Paper, Adhesive, Sumi Ink, Wood, Nails, approx. 20’x20’x 8’ • Photography by Kyle Dubay
Kelly McConnell, Aroused Cloud (2019–2020), wood, acetate, sumi ink, hardware, 731/2"x2"x144"
Kelly McConnell, Distant Present (2020), Acrylic media, Paper, Adhesive, Sumi Ink, Duct tape, 5’x4’9”
Kelly McConnell, Cosmic Being (2021), Acrylic Media on Paper, Duct tape, 581/2”x84”
Kelly McConnell, Sets (2020), Acrylic media, Paper, Sumi Ink, Duct tape, approx. 20’x20’x 8’
Oil on Canvas
Kelly McConnell, Self-forgiveness With A Side of Emotional Eating (2020), oil on canvas, 36"x48" [Private Collection]
Kelly McConnell, Cloud Hands (2021), oil on canvas, 36"x48" [Private Collection]
Kelly McConnell, Momentum Stump (2021), oil on canvas, 36"x48"
Kelly McConnell, Remembering Membrane (2021), oil on canvas, 48"x36”
Kelly McConnell, Opening (2021), oil on canvas, 48"x36”
Kelly McConnell, Fire Water > Ardent Sauce (2021), oil on canvas, 36"x48"
Kelly McConnell, Feelings Extruder (2021), oil on canvas, 36"x48"
Kelly McConnell, In Out (2021), oil on canvas, 18”x24”
Photography by Gary Lowell, unless stated otherwise.