the art & writing of

 r.l. bickham writes on art from New Orleans.

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The first and most lasting impression of these pieces is an invigorating thickness, a density.  The combination of rough edges, asymmetric corners and slightly off curves, certifies human agency.  The eyes follow the intent of another human being.  This artist has new and old ways of communicating, via a hand, an eye, a mouth that have a lot to say.

The combination of glossy colors and the texture of much of the clearly found material keeps the works' folksy feel without being cliche, preachy or condescending.  We are clearly speaking with one of "us."    There is a discreet, even playful, subtext of an ethics of empathy here.

The juxtaposition of color, image, found objects within the natural and idiosyncratic surfaces of these canvases, the splicing of regional colloquialisms, the spacing of language not as language but as a generative thing as well -- these features create an unusual multifaceted dialectical engagement.  

This combination captivates the  viewer before the relationship ever needs to be explicitly declared or contested and long after the flush of the new gives way to the comfort of the familiar or the embarrassment of nakedness.   The art seduces the viewer; one is pulled unwittingly into a secret life, right there, in plain view.

This is work that has become, that is becoming.  It has been sweated over, laughed with, most certainly lived through, loved, hated, discovered, disowned.  

The artist has been ashamed of it, afraid about it, moved by it, and created it with care.  This is not an abstract exercise in technique; in its own way it continues to breathe.  There is a brown earthy life to it all -- no stillborn navel gazing.  The themes come from a world common to us all.

This work drops you in the middle of somewhere else, it moves you across the street, it leaves you standing at the doorway.  Kelleher's art entices; it suggests you come a little closer to make out that word, this phrase.   It is accessible, available, but unattainable.  The sustained empathic gaze that disowns none of its transformations, the detached descriptive clarity, and the impressionistic warmth of color.   

Only a woman could make something like this; only a man could put so much into these hard edges.

For the gift to be sustainable, the journey has to engage, taste, smell, challenge, feel, share, inspire, inflame, embolden, demand, appeal.   Here is a journey of such dimensions.

This is vital work of remembering who we are and making peace with our collective and individual ghosts and muses.   Revelry, self indulgence, respect for the matrix, and showing up on the grid may  be part of the artist's personal repertoire, but these aspects are in the background or all together absent from her work.   Kelleher's work de-familiarizes without obfuscating and generously, topically, intimately, takes us with it to places we would otherwise never dare.  

Take the figurative hand offered, take a chance and take the journey.

--rlb