STATEMENT
Examining complexities and vulnerabilities within identity and self is at the heart of my practice. I meditate on domestic environs and the interplay of parent, child, children, spouse, pets, possessions, work and home, finding a narrative that is often strange, surreal and sufficiently ambiguous to evoke the viewer’s imagined or projected meanings. My dream-like paintings might seem harmonious, but a longer look and the viewer could be pushed off balance by these psychological portraits that reveal a little more angst than whimsy.
I create my works by gathering cut-outs of figures, nature and objects to which I am drawn. The imagery may be familiar and reflect quotidian life, objects of desire or simply interesting in color or shape. I cut from a variety of sources, old and new, including inherited, vintage Scandinavian design magazines as well as current titles and use them in a completely transformative way to find the story. After working out the narrative at an intimate scale, dictated by the size of the cut-outs, I scale up the composition to create large acrylic gouache paintings on linen. The paintings do not contain collage, but the process remains essential to their creation and aesthetic.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Born in 1970, Kelly Duffield grew up in Oklahoma City. She holds a BFA in graphic design and a BA in art history from Oklahoma State University. She completed an internship at the renowned printmaking studio Universal Limited Art Editions (ULAE) in New York, where she was exposed such artist as Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Kiki Smith and Jane Hammond. Later, she turned to the professional path of practicing law and lived in Colorado for more than 20 years.
Duffield started painting seriously again in 2017 after a nearly 25 year hiatus. By 2018, she had her first solo exhibition and has now participated in numerous one-person and group exhibitions in Colorado, California and New York, including at Naropa University (Boulder, CO), Seidel City (Boulder, CO), Redline Contemporary Art Center (Denver, CO) and Barrett Art Center (Poughkeepsie, NY). Her most recent solo exhibition was with and she is represented by Themes + Projects, Minnesota Street Project (San Francisco, CA).
Duffield now lives and works full-time as an artist in New York.
PRESS AND ESSAYS:
3 Mixed Media Artists Share the Secrets of Collage by Charlie Ornett, 5280 Magazine
Haven, catalog for Naropa University exhibition, with forward by Charmain Schuh
Collage and the Kaleidoscope essay by Yasmeen Siddiqui, art writer
Just What is It? essay by Janice McCullah, art historian
Pink essay by Jennifer Heath, art writer and curator
In the Pink Room by Deanne Gernter, art writer
Thinking Like a Flower essay by Jennifer Sullivan, attorney and writer