WTW Kathryn Kelley 2.Indd

K A THRYN K E L L EY treading where no one hears the echo of her foot fall WOMEN & THEIR WORK M ARCH 6 – A PRIL 1 5 , 2 0 1 0 A USTI N , T EXAS “When I shut up love...” by Kathryn Kelley, remnant tires, wood and metal, 2010. Cover Panel: “As the ache...” by Kathryn Kelley, remnant tires, wood and metal, 2010. KATHRYN KELLEY ugly, dirty, crusted and odorous, Kelley’s closely-written text on 30 feet of blackboard, treading where no one hears works evoke a blasted apocalyptic landscape Kelley throws herself into her work in a of post-consumer entropy. Describing her literal, physical way, testing her limits both the echo of her foot fall process as “a visceral reaction against the cult physically and spiritually. In 2006, she of the instant, the new, the forever young, described hammering twenty-seven pounds forever fertile with its pushed up breast and of nails into tar-covered wood for her first swollen lips,” Kelley’s works carry a moralistic painting: “Tar. Nail. Tar. Nail. Tar. Nail. Tar. condemnation of waste, yet at the same time, Nail. Tar. Nail. Tar. Nail. Tar and nails for offer redemption; salvaging utterly undesir- ten days straight, four to six hours a day, my able material and creating gnarly beauty. physical limit.” In struggling with her work, Kelley externalizes an inner struggle with a What is the human body but a rubbery tube? dark world of repression and guilt; battling, Kelley’s tire works have an appalling sensu- prodding and constraining her ugly materials ality, with skins bound, squeezed and pierced into metaphors for difficult emotional situ- by rusty baling wire. Deflated and flabby, ations, using her art as a battering ram to Kelley’s tubular forms are sagging corseted push open the door to a new identity. breasts and flaccid, elephantine phalluses, Accustomed to continuous self-analysis, withered by age, and black with sin. From Kelley began a blog at about the same time the slimy toxicity of tiny invertebrates to she began thinking of herself as an artist. the scabrous callosities of the rhinoceros, Tellingly, her first post, on December 17, “When I shut up love...” by Kathryn Kelley, Kelley’s galumphing creations suggest the 2006 is titled “Becoming unsafe.” The more- remnant tires, wood and metal, 2010. unpleasant side of living creation. Though than-daily torrent of words and images (304 Being in the same space with Kathy Kelley’s they have the same flabby grunge as early posts in 2009) that follow chronicle her art is like a visit to the elephant house: one Oldenburg soft sculptures, Kelley’s sculp- headlong emergence. Then a graduate student marvels at the enormity, the textures, and tures are utterly lacking in cute. The in graphic design at the University of the smell. Her work is excessive. In the five automotive origin and monumental scale of Houston, Kelley described her growing years she has been working as a sculptor, she her truck-tube pieces is more like John mania for raw experience. As she studied has produced a shocking bulk of enormous Chamberlain’s formalized car-wreck sculp- contemporary art, she says: pieces. Too big to lift, too dirty to handle, tures, in which an aloof abstraction struggles too ephemeral to keep, the exterior yard of with pop garbage. It’s tempting to assign “I found myself unable to simply respond to her studio in Houston is fringed with hulking Chamberlain and Kelley contrasting male/ those works intellectually. I was compelled mounds of slowly degenerating rubber. female takes on the same boundless ocean of to make, and make is what I did. My first What’s impressive about Kelley’s work is her automotive waste. Chamberlain’s pieces are bastardization, a Pollock-de Kooning in frightening intensity of effort. tense and energetic, lifting and thrusting under 5 minutes. Bad painting, combines, angular fragments into space; Kelley’s pieces first generation feminism. Fast, freely. Kathy Kelley’s materials are quintessentially yield to gravity, flop and sag, falling easily Pink—discovered spontaneously. House trash: corroding inner tubes, blown-out into the tradition of feminist body-critique paint flying everywhere. Ruined pants. tire treads, peeling boards and soggy mat- with Eva Hesse and Lee Bontecou. In My Ruined shirts. Ruined shoes. The sacredness tresses. Like Rauschenberg’s rumpled own lies swallow me, 2008, three roughly of art demystified. It was OK to make bad packing boxes, these unappealing remnants human-sized columns stand shrouded in art. I didn’t have to make something beauti- are the background noise of contemporary dusty black rubber. Loops of baling wire ful or meaningful. I just had to make. And I urban experience. Kelley’s earliest works pinch them painfully inwards at what did. Making good. Making bad. Making. used materials with a functional utilitarian might be necks, busts, waists, and ankles. Concerned design professors averted their modesty: rough rope, galvanized pipe, Anonymous figures like standing mummies eyes from the accumulating pile of paintings cinderblocks. For Kelley, these objects rep- or body bags, they speak powerfully about in my small studio space.” resent an honest alternative to the mediated, constraint and regret. hyped consumer culture against which she is Four solo shows in as many years, each rebelling. As her work evolved, her materials Kelley’s work is a workout: wrestling with crowded with enormous sculpture, three became more emphatically trashy. Black and heavy sheets of flabby rubber, scrawling large-scale outdoor projects, and twenty group exhibitions since 2006 show the 2009 I breathe. Kingwood Art Gallery, Lonestar College, extent to which Kelley is still driven by the Kingwood, TX. same manic impulse. 2009 Feet of shadows. G Gallery, Houston, TX. 2009 In the space of absence. O’Quinn Gallery of Lawndale Art Kelley’s rubber-inner tube works have always Center, Houston, TX. relied on a more-or-less revealed substruc- 2007 Modes of conformity: Solo Exhibition. Bunker Hill City ture, usually of rusting steel, that give her Hall, Bunker Hill, TX. amorphous rubbery elements form. In these new works, Kelley replaces some of the steel framing with wood: evocative weathered bits PUBLIC ART of old houses that not only support her 2009 Human nature planted. Russ Pitman Park. Houston, TX. pieces physically, but also place rubber forms 2008 Green Valentine: Suckling Is Continuous. Freed Park, in a domestic context, encouraging one to Houston, TX., sponsored by BBAP and Heights read them as metaphors for family life. Beautification Project and Woodland Heights Civic Kelley’s titles frame her work in terms of Associations. emotionally fraught relationships: two pieces 2008 Sculpture Vision XVI: Time marker/Time keeper. hung back-to-back in a recent show were Lone Star College North Harris, Houston, TX. called: “Without your forgiveness I am still bound to what happened between us. Only you can GROUP EXHIBITIONS set me free.” and “Betrayal 2009 Texas Biennial 2009 [Juror: Michael Duncan ]. Austin, TX. is not so very far away; it 2008 Hasta La Basura Se Separa [artcrush] (Even The Trash comes from within me; Separates Itself). Centro Cultural de Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. does it come from within 2008 unBOXed. Crazywood Gallery. Huntsville, TX. you.” In treading where no one hears the echo of her 2008 BOX 13: Cohesive discord. space125gallery, Houston Arts foot fall, old doors symbol- Alliance, Houston, TX. ize escape or entrapment, 2008 Shredded: Reuse refuse: when trash becomes art. floorboards from a half- As a member of H7. Houston Community College East dozen houses are pieced Campus, Houston, TX. together to create an arche- 2008 EXPO 2008 Juried Show [Juror: Terri Thornton]. 500x. typal American home, a Dallas, TX. stage setting within and 2008 Oklahoma Centerfold, Seven-State Biennial Exhibition. around which Kelley’s tire- [Juror: Paul Medina] Leslie Powell Foundation and Gallery. tube actors can gesture Lawton, OK. and squirm. 2007 ArtCrawl Houston 2007. CSAW, Houston, TX. “When I shut up love...” by Kathryn Kelley, remnant tires, wood and metal, 2010. 2007 Seven-State Biennial Exhibition. Selected Best of Show. [Juror: Paul Medina] University Of Science And Arts of OK KATHRYN STIRLING KELLEY Art Gallery, Chickasha, OK. EDUCATION 2007 Folds and Stacked: An exercise in restraint. CSAW, Houston, TX. 2006 Master of Fine Arts. University of Houston, Houston, TX. 2006 Unhinging the distant. Curated by Kathryn Kelley. 2003 Associate of Applied Science Degree, Interactive Media and CSAW, Houston, TX. Web Design The Art Institute of Houston, Houston, TX. 2006 ArtCrawl Houston 2006—CSAW curator and artist. 1985 Bachelor of Science. TX. A&M University, College Station, TX. CSAW, Houston, TX. 2006 University Of Houston MFA Thesis Exhibition. SOLO EXHIBITIONS Blaffer Gallery, Houston, TX. 2010 The grey area, (with Devon Moore), UTSA Satellite Space. 2005 ArtCrawl Annual [Juror: Jennifer Jankauskas] University of San Antonio, TX. Houston Sculpture Show CSAW, Houston, TX. 2005 Show Us Your Feminism. [Jurors: Terrie Sulton, Michelle 2008 Of wallpaper & other repeating patterns by J R Compton. Barnes, Lynn Randolph] Vine Street Studios, Houston, TX. DallasArtsRevue.com. 2005 No Parking Exhibition. Aerosol Warfare Gallery, Houston, TX. 2008 Seven State Biennial by Kelsey Karper. Art Focus Oklahoma, Volume 23, No. 1 2005 Cultural intonations, Consumptive rhythms, Mechanical ringing, The societal din. Audio performance. Mercy Street, Houston, TX. 2007 For whom the bell crawls by Bill Davenport. Glasstire.com–Houston Artletter/blog. 2005 Hung: University of Houston Sculpture Show. CSAW, Houston, TX. 2007 Mixed-media wall hanging wins competition. John Brandenburg. The Oklahoman 2005 The Big Show. [Juror: Michael Olijnyk, The Mattress November 4, Chickasha, Oklahoma Factory] Lawndale Art Center, Houston, TX. 2007 Local artist gets lost in beauty of found objects by 2005 The Jock Strap: A Group Exhibition.

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