Inspire (Tulip)

ABOUT THE ARTIST:

Jay Kelly began his career in graphic design, yet quickly emerged as a notable fine artist with his unique style. Kelly’s latest body of work is focused on torn collage elements. He starts with a source image that catches his eye for balance, depth, beauty, romance and overall visual intrigue. Sometimes he finds these images in books or magazines, like his artwork No Matter Where, which is from a Balenciaga ad in a vintage fashion magazine. Other times the source will be one of his own photographs (as in the case of the chandelier in Just Possible). Once he has chosen a particular image, he explores different sizing and cropping. He then proceeds to the formidable task of recreating it out of various bits of paper.

Kelly uses a range of collage material for their varied tones and content. For printed
material, he uses vintage magazines, novels (both classics and the more obscure) and art history books. Depending on the age, condition and yellowing of the old book pages, he is able to get various shades of whites and tans. Kelly also uses a selection of different shades of black paper stock along with a range of hand dyed paper to round out his color palette. In some cases, with color imagery, the vintage material is scanned and reprinted with archival ink on fine art paper to preserve the vibrancy of the collage material which could otherwise be lost over time.

The process is labor intensive as he hand-tears and glues each piece to slowly build
shadows and highlights. Eventually when the overall image takes shape, he takes several trips across the studio to view the collage through squinted eyes to check proportions and make sure the shading all feels right. The bits of paper tend to get smaller and smaller as the piece nears completion.

Once the collage is complete, Kelly seals everything with gel medium and then under either a thick coat of glossy resin or varnish, uniting the varied elements into one cohesive work. Each piece’s title comes from text that has found its way into the finished piece. Kelly chose to paint with paper and various printed materials in order to achieve a unique depth to his work. By allowing the viewer to first see a complete, near photorealistic image from a distance, then at a closer look to explore the many individual textures and bits of text, he is able to add layers of meaning to each piece. Kelly loves the effect that thousands of little bits of paper, all taken out of context, come together to create something new. He feels art should inspire, transport and hopefully awe the viewer. This is his intention with this series of collage works.

Education

1997 B.A. Sociology, University of California, Los Angeles