The Archetypal Landscapes When the COVID lockdown occurred in 2020, I returned to the landscape as a source of inspiration and as the country burned throughout the summer with widespread rioting, I knew I’d made the right decision. I was looking for peace of mind, not only for myself but for the nation as a whole. The Archetypal Landscape series is my attempt at projecting peace and tranquillity through the beauty of nature. In this series, the process consists of reducing the visual language of the landscape to its barest essentials, while still conveying a specific mood, temperament and time of day. These images were originally sketched in marker at various locations around Northern Kentucky, but the color schemes were created from memory, evoking a dreamy, surreal atmosphere far removed from the current societal “scorched earth” mentality.

-Kevin T. Kelly 12 October 2021 

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Kevin T. Kelly, born in 1960, graduated from the Art Academy of Cincinnati in 1987 with a B.F.A. in Sculpture. He moved to New York City in 1988, where he worked as a studio assistant to Tom Wesselmann for six years.

Kelly’s work is decidedly “Neo-Pop” or “Post-Pop”. Infused with a postmodern sensibility, contemporaneous subject matter, and executed in what the artist refers to as a “hyper-chromatic” palette, the paintings are not only redolent of contemporary issues and politics, but excel as studies in formal definition, composition and color. Allowing for open-ended lines of query and interpretation without the burdensome weight of didactic pretense, Kelly chooses to establish a dialogue with the viewer vis-à-vis the painted image rather than wag his finger sanctimoniously from an ivory tower like so much “Activist Art” does today. His work has been described as: “Roy Lichtenstein meets Dennis Hopper on Steroids.” It’s a wry, complex admixture of sardonic social commentary, the six o’clock news and the Sunday funnies.

He currently lives in Covington, Kentucky and works in the Greater Cincinnati area. His paintings have appeared on the cover of New American Paintings in 2000 and 2003 and are featured in numerous public and private collections both in the United States and abroad, including Breitling S.A., The Kinsey Institute and Procter and Gamble. In addition to having taught as an adjunct professor at The Art Academy of Cincinnati and the Baker-Hunt Foundation in Covington, KY, he has also written critical review for Cincinnati CityBeat, Dialogue magazine, New Art Examiner and the online art journal, AEQAI.