Artist statement

Kelly Irvine’s abstract color field paintings invite the viewer to step into a world of lush color, featuring sheer, overlapping layers, gestural brush work, flowing movement, and repeating motifs. She is inspired by the canvas staining techniques and paintings of Helen Frankenthaler as well as Washington Color School artists Morris Louis and Kenneth Victor Young.

Drawn to translucent color, Kelly layers organic forms and marks that flow and intersect, resulting in increased tonal depth. Hard edges contrast with areas of variation in color intensity. Her art evolves through experimentation with materials, tools and processes.

For the past year, Kelly has been working with intensely-colored (often fluorescent) thinned acrylics layered onto raw canvas to create stain paintings with depth, energy and vibrancy.

Resume/CV

Solo exhibitions:

National Institutes of Health Clinical Center, West Gallery
Kelly Irvine, January 7 – April 7, 2024
Curator: Lillian Fitzgerald

Touchstone Gallery, Washington, DC
Spotlight: Kelly Irvine, July 6 - 16, 2023
Curator: Abbey Allison McClain

Group exhibitions:

Martha Spak Gallery, Washington, DC
Symphony of Colors, October 18 - November 28, 2023
Juror: Lesley Duncan

Delaplaine Arts Center, Frederick, MD
National Juried Exhibition, May 6 - July 9, 2023
Juror: Foon Sham

Maryland Art Place, Baltimore, MD
Out of Order Benefit Auction, April 21, 2023
Curator: Caitlin Gill

Columbia Art Center, Columbia, MD
Visionary Women (invitational exhibition), March 8-31, 2023
Curator: Liz Henzey
Juror: Antonia Ramis Miguel

Yellow Barn Gallery, Glen Echo, MD
2022 Friends of Yellow Barn Juried Exhibition, Dec. 3-18, 2022
Juror: Ingrid Christensen

Glen Echo Park, Glen Echo, MD
2022 Annual Labor Day Art Show, Sept. 2-5, 2022
Juror: Zoma Wallace

Creative Alliance, Baltimore, MD
The Big Show, July 16-August 21
Curator: Joy Davis

Yellow Barn Gallery, Glen Echo, MD (virtual)
2020 Friends of Yellow Barn Juried Exhibition, Dec. 12, 2020, March 31, 2021
Juror: Harry Cooper, Head Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

Recognition:

-Received honorable mention from juror Harry Cooper, senior curator and head of modern art at the National Gallery of Art, for “Cabochon” in the 2020 Friends of Yellow Barn annual members show.

-Received 2023 Maryland State Arts Council Artist Grant

Education and related background:

Kelly studied graphic design and fine art at University of Maryland, and has also studied painting at Yellow Barn Studios and Montpelier Arts Center in Maryland, as well as at the Washington Studio School in D.C.

After working for over 25 years as a graphic designer and art director, in 2019 Kelly left the profession to concentrate on abstract painting and freelance textile print design.

As of 2023, Kelly has taken a hiatus from textile print design to joyfully focus solely on her full-time painting practice.