DEAN KELLY – City Studies | The Kenny Gallery, 17 August – 7 September, 2019.

DEAN KELLY – City Studies | The Kenny Gallery, 17 August – 7 September, 2019.Galway artist Dean Kelly’s most recent works, City Studies record the built heritage of his nativecity and will be hanging at the Kenny Gallery through Ireland’s National Heritage Week 2019, andbeyond.Former Macnas designer and current exhibition organiser with Kennys, who Deirdre Falvey hasdescribed as ‘Gamekeeper turned Poacher’, Kelly once more steps from behind the curtain in presentinghis own latest work, the efforts of a busy summer speeding inexorably towards National Heritage Week,in this small but he hopes perfectly formed collection.Kelly’s usual layered symbolic style gives way to unabashed painterly celebration of Galway’s streets, itsiconic landmarks and most especially, its people. The focal point of each loose but representationalpainting is the city’s inhabitants going about their daily lives, working, playing, walking on Quay Street,shopping, swimming at Blackrock or collecting their dole at the GPO.The artist often touches on the representational origins of his work as an aspect of his composition,where details or backgrounds are painted in a traditional manner. In City Studies Kelly has thought itmost appropriate to flesh out what might be detail studies as wholly realised works. His normal graphicinterplay is restrained here, and City Studies as a project benefits from this clarity of approach. Theresulting paintings are also attractive and most approachable, apt for work primarily concerned withpeople, and not a given in contemporary art.Dean Kelly’s paintings show a contemporary approach to traditional materials and lean increasingly towardsthe expressive. Colour, texture, drawing and various forms of mark-making are layered using variousmedia.His photography is a constant project of recording his locality and forms an ongoing resource for hispaintings. Indeed, the paintings of City Studies are augmented with a number of Kelly’s photographs –finished works in their own right here, they may make it to canvas in the future.Dean Kelly’s City Studies will be officially opened by fellow Galway artist, the renowned and criticallyacclaimed Jennifer Cunningham, at 2.30pm on Saturday 17th August at the Kenny Gallery, Liosbán,Tuam Road, Galway.The exhibition will run for three weeks, Monday – Saturday, 9.00 – 17.00, admission is free, all arewelcome and the artworks are available for sale.[Disclaimer: Dean is a good friend of mine.]Dean Kelly Exhibition 2019.