PROJECT SPACE

LUCAS KELLY | Pictures of You

On view: November 8 - December 20, 2018 

In the gallery’s Project Space, Lucas Kelly will present “Pictures of You”, a series of works that explore the inefficiency of memory’s ability to maintain narrative. Developing formal sensory triggers that precipitate nostalgic responses, this body of work hopes to engage narrative participation from the viewer. These formally ambiguous objects, which act as surrogates for lost entities in the artist’s personal experience, become tactile markers for memories which have broken down over time. These scenes are averaged time over time and gaps are filled to create clarity. Continually accessing these memories breaks down our ability to accurately store their information. Kelly is interested in this type of systematic failure, a beautiful disaster of sentimentality. Keeping his objects formally ambiguous allows the viewer to engage on their own terms, and apply their own narrative. Kelly thinks about his work as nostalgically being similar to songs in the way that music becomes a placeholder for moments in our personal histories. Different points in the artist’s personal narrative generate specific images to which he can attribute a sonic reference. Kelly’s objects now occupy a physical space protecting them from the ephemerality of memory.

Lucas Kelly’s work has been exhibited in museums and galleries across the United States and throughout Europe.  His work has been included in multiple group shows, most notably in the survey of abstract painting "The Painted World" at PS1 MoMA. Kelly holds a BFA from Maryland Institute College of Art, a MFA from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University, and is a full professor at Mercer County Community College. Kelly currently lives and works in Philadelphia, PA.