Sep 3

Ryan Michael Kelly

Ryan Michael Kelly is a painter and photographer who has exhibited across the United States. Notable exhibitions include presentations at Waterworks and The Art Center Sarasota in Florida, Iron Gate East in Southampton, New York, Arts in Bushwick, Milk Gallery, and School of Visual Arts in New York City, and SE Center of Photography in South Carolina. Ryan has also exhibited in Tokyo at the Galleria Atrium. He has won awards in the Midwest at the Hidden Glenn Art Festival in Kansas and The Kansas City Royal in Missouri. As a photographer, Ryan has worked with signature brand names and publishers such as Vogue, Vanity Fair, Maybelline, and Bloomingdales.

The paintings focus on expressive, loose as well as refined, clean compositions portraying fashionable figures while the photography blurs the line between fashion and fine art. Usually using a subdued, muted palette, the colors in the paintings holistically create an impression of a relaxed atmosphere and lighting. The eclectic paintings range from monochromatic backgrounds to busy layouts with suggestive brushwork or simplified geometric interiors.

With a sense of darkness, the photography can come off as emboldened with harsh angles and digitally-inspired lighting. Ryan’s figures range from nudes to fashionably dressed figures expressing confidence and striking poses. While the paintings lack tension, the photography embraces static and lighting interference creating a sense of friction. The paintings may come across as relaxed with the figures being comfortable with themselves and their surroundings displaying a sense of character unlike the cold, seriousness of the figures in the photography. Shadows in the paintings contain cool, light colors suggesting a calm, serene presence of the subjects.

Again and Again (pictured above) best accentuates both applications of Ryan’s brush which includes the sharp, clean outlines as well as loose applications. The figure pops out from herself as if her shadow or ghost were reflecting her future actions or thoughts. She stands firm and static in solid form in the background while through the foreground she conveys motion and an impression of her holistic self. The painting best expresses both fine art and design principles in monochromatic and outline presentation as well as sketchy application.

Ryan Michael Kelly can be described as an artist who explores various avenues within the arts, refusing to be pinned down to one singular style. In the paintings, although the application remains varied, the color palette contains consistency in the muted, neutral tones. Ryan’s strictly fashion photography with his more experimental theatrics of figures express statements about standards of beauty and may even come off as macabre with the aggressive lighting and angular forms. These fashionable compositions convey complexities of human emotion from somberness, melancholiness, and contemplation. With a sense of refinement and a perception of expressive flare, Ryan Michael Kelly communicates human form through heightened awareness and layouts frozen in time.