My paintings explore
visceral sensations through a system of relationships and actions transported
through the materiality of paint and painting process as subject. Forever,
painters having been painting beauty from the environment they are surrounded
in and how they perceive those environments to be. Investigations of the
artificial and organic form and the cycle of the over-grown piles of the
urban landscape are filtered through subtle notions of the contemporary
world. These images are then broken down and deconstructed providing an
abstract language that informs this system. The painting then endures
an intuitive rotation of drawing, hacks, scrapes, and baths where a struggle
or tension is created almost pushing this process into a state of performance.
This labor-intensive process leaves the painting as evidence of these
events as well as a final image. Highly committed to the tradition and
craft of painting, the work attempts to engage conversation with painting
and its relationship to its own history.
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Kelsey Fain is
a photographer whose work ranges from fantasy to reality, fine art to
commercial. She shoots primarily portraits and her talent for working
with people and the human form can be seen in all of her pieces. Her work
generates a sense of closeness and connection between the viewer and the
subject as if a story can be told from each image. The mood of her work
varies from piece to piece; sometimes dark and clever, other times witty
and humorous. Kelsey Fain’s work shows her natural ability to discover
the hidden beauty and possibilities with in any subject.
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Photography has
given me the chance to show my own version of truth. This version may
change from day to day, but there are common threads that run throughout.
I have recently become enthralled with the idea of a romantic take on
disconnect. From figures that are both engaging and distant, to landscapes
that are inviting but inaccessible, I seek to show a world full of paradox.
I use very specific lighting and color pallets in order to take the subject
out of their natural context. I am also extremely interested in the conversation
between fashion and fine art photography. With my portraits, I attempted
to blur the lines of the two genres in order to suspend the images in
an undefined space.
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In a world of constant
transformation I bring to light the loss of our innate sensibilities to
coexist as a cohesive community. The stark dystopia filled with sharp
architectural elements, undergoing transformations, or crumbing rubble
and debris, create an unforgiving state of constant flux. My work has
slowly developed an interest in an exploration of distinct spatial and
psychological relationships of people amidst a fractured landscape. Hovering
between the twisted logic of dreams and our perceived reality, I strive
to strike a universal chord of memory revealing a specific time and place
either imagined or real. Using a variety of images taken from my own photographs
or culled from various forms of media I reorganize and reinterpret, thereby
turning a banal series of images into self- defining monumental moments.
My paintings of the landscape deal with the psychological relationship
of the figure to its surrounding environment. These worlds are at once
strangely familiar and at the same time repulsive. The paintings are at
times devoid of any physical human presence yet one cannot help or escape
the questions and draw conclusions about the people or societies who once
inhabited these spaces or still do.
The paintings of abandoned buildings on barren plots of land, which could
be an anonymous stretch of suburbia under construction or the last remnants
of a poor neighborhood in any metropolis around the world. These worlds
are devoid of the human figure. Yet the consequence of human interactions
and choices both individual and collective is inescapable and undeniable.
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It’s about
being a girl, confidence under an obsessive compulsive overload, being
bad at words and talking too much, breaking away and not knowing what
to keep close by, and always dropping the y. Art to me is the excitement
of everything around me; the environment in which I live, the people I
confide in, the boys that break my heart, the daily routine and those
minuscule things that make everyday a little different, new words learned,
new puzzles that finally fit together. It’s learning, creating,
and sharing ideas; its sending mail to people you barely know. It’s
drawing until your face hits the floor, needing more than a wall to fill.
It’s when you’re under the influence of a power-chord panic
attack along with people who will come and go and those who will always
stay. Art is vulnerability under speech, vulnerability under all.
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No matter which
series of photographs I am focusing on at any given time, the work that
I do is always intuitive. Using figures in all of my work, each series
varies depending on what I am specifically interested in or influenced
by at that moment; I am very aware of how I use figures in relation to
the frame, with the intentions of setting up a dialogue either between
figures in the piece, or between the viewer and the image. From illusion
through scale, proportion, distortion, or concealing, to interpreting
and recreating my own images from paintings I find enjoyment in making
photographs that captivate any viewer’s attention, no matter the
age, while simultaneously pushing myself to produce more and progress
with every piece I create.
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pickles wrapped in paper towels
my childhood was
a mess of
chlorine stained hair and skinned knees
of cake breath
and toes burnt on hot asphalt
it was sleeping in the living room
of the house i grew up in
with the air conditioner on high;
it was a plaid blanket
cutting the humidity and the air around us in two
my childhood was a summer cricket
singing under the radiator;
just shy of the reach
of my little girl hands
it was a ship on fire
burning where the atlantic
meets a star littered sky;
rising out of the water
revealing itself to us as the moon in disguise.
my childhood was our damp attic;
it was an old suitcase
stuffed with the Halloween costumes
that swallowed us whole
it was thirsty grass on naked feet;
it was pickles wrapped in paper towels.
growing up was a ghost story on a cassette tape
rewound hundreds of times
never ceasing to terrify me
i want to make tangible the feeling
of a popsicle running down my throat in august
i want to illustrate the moments
that i assumed would never matter
as much as they do to me now
my work rests in this purgatory
of what i remember
it’s the feeling i had
looking at our backyard
after a silent night of snowfall
pure of footprints and cat tracks;
untainted from adulthood.
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