MANCHESTER, NH – Kelley Stelling Contemporary presents a group exhibition opening February 7, 2019 titled Contemporary Landscapes: Seen and Lost. The show will feature works by Rachelle Beaudoin, Lynn Duryea, Daniel Espinoza, Mark Elliott Johnson and Youdhi Maharjan. Exhibition dates are February 7 through March 22, 2019. The Artist Reception will be held on February 7 from 5:30-7:30 p.m.
Rachelle Beaudoin (video above) is an artist who uses video, wearables, and performance to explore feminine iconography and identity within popular culture. For this exhibition, Beaudoin will be featuring a series of videos that explore interactions between nature and the artist. Coincidentally, a portrait of the artist is incorporated in Ethan Murrow’s large-scale installation “Hauling,” now on exhibit at the Currier Museum of Art.
Lynn Duryea states: “The visual points of departure for my work are structures that range in size from small to monumental, everyday objects that include letters of the alphabet, tools and implements, and architecture of various kinds.” For this show, she will be exhibiting small-scale ceramic works, and will be teaching a special ceramics class at the NHIA during this exhibit.
Daniel Espinoza, a recent graduate of NHIA, makes paintings that are meticulously formed through the repetition of marks, a process similar to paving a road with stone. Without subject or form to cling to, the paintings actively fluctuate between shallow and vast, rigid and flowing, all and nothing, abstract and mystical.
Mark Elliott Johnson, a NY-based artist with deep New England roots states: “The vast open vistas and atmospheric conditions of coastal Maine are the source of inspirations for my paintings. The transient states of the sea and sky provide endless opportunities to explore my ongoing interest in combining opposites.” The paintings in this show have an almost abstract quality, but suggest the sea and sky.
Youdhi Maharjan was born in Nepal, but left his home country to study art at the age of 19 despite his family’s wishes for him to follow a different path. His journey brought him to New England College in Henniker, NH where he began creating his meticulous cut-paper works. Armed with an X-Acto knife and archival glue stick, Maharjan painstakingly transforms pages of books scavenged from thrift shops “freeing language from the enslavement of meaning” by repetitiously singling out words, letters and shapes. His work was included in the Currier Museum’s “Deep Cuts” exhibition in 2017.
Kelley Stelling Contemporary is a gallery dedicated to the presentation of works by emerging and mid-career artists, based in downtown Manchester NH at 221 Hanover Street.