Exhibition Tour: Lee Kelly & Judy Cooke via Facebook Live or YouTube Thursday, June 3, 2021, 6 pm PST
The Elizabeth Leach Gallery is pleased to present Recent Work by Lee Kelly, featuring steel sculptures, cast bronze forms and figurative watercolors. The exhibition focuses on new works inspired by past writings, musings and studies found inside the pages of the artist’s studio sketchbooks.
Kelly’s travel inspirations are evident in the sculptural works that range in scale from immense standing sculptures to intimately sized cast bronze pieces. The lyrical imagery synthesizes modernist and ancient aesthetics, as exemplified in Tibetan Wedding, 2020, where the central figure of the circular trio appears to be residing over a ceremony between two zig-zagged shaped forms perched on rudimentary wheels. Swirling markings on the steel’s surface are made by a grinder tool that texturizes and activates the metal, allowing brilliant light reflections at every vantage point. The end result evokes a feeling of exuberant celebration.
In a quieter contemplative work, Yucatan Unicycle, 2020, includes an elongated vertical shape balanced on a bisected wheel-like structure at the base. The form communicates the strength and frailty of the human body sitting solidly balanced and grounded in place, while its Cor-ten steel patina is intended to weather and evolve over time.
Lee Kelly is one of the most revered artists in the Pacific Northwest, best known for his monumental public sculptures throughout Oregon and the surrounding region. Born in 1932 in McCall, Idaho, Lee Kelly graduated from the Museum Art School at the Portland Art Museum (now known as the Pacific Northwest College of Art, PNCA) in 1959. Kelly's long, prestigious career and prolific nature have resulted in a significant body of work which can be seen in public and private collections throughout the country, including the Portland Art Museum (Portland, OR), Stanford University (Palo Alto, CA), New Orleans Art Museum (New Orleans, LA), Seattle Art Museum (Seattle, WA) and the City of Sapporo, Japan. As one of the most recognized artists in the Northwest, his modernist sculptures are a central focus at regional institutions such as Reed College, Oregon State University, Catlin Gabel School, the Oregon Health and Sciences University and the Washington Park Rose Garden. In 2012, one of his most significant works, Memory 99, was installed in Portland's North Park blocks, at the new home of PNCA. Kelly has been exhibiting at the Elizabeth Leach Gallery since the early 1980s. In 2010, he was the subject of a major career retrospective at the Portland Art Museum.
Lee Kelly, Nepal I, Nepal III, Nepal II and Naga Temple, 2020, bronze, dimensions vary
Judy Cooke’s exhibition, Form First, highlights the artist’s exploration of shape and dimensionality through new minimalist wall constructions. Spatial relationships are central concerns to the artist, and precise considerations inform the physicality of her artworks. Extending only two inches from the wall, these wood and aluminum shapes cast distinct shadows while painted edges reiterate their “objectness” and formal presence.
Cooke’s artworks merge painting and sculpture with additions of bright pops of color and dynamic lines that encourage the viewer’s eye to move in all directions. In the vertical artwork, Staircase, 2021, brilliant orange shapes read like a statistical scale with marks that intermittently climb and fall. Cooke’s recent works appear like geometries within geometries. As they engage and reflect the space around them, the works subtly communicate ideas of containment and expansion.
Judy Cooke has been exploring abstract imagery and the structure of painting for over 40 years. With a strong understanding of and connection to the genres of geometric abstraction and abstract expressionism, Cooke explores the space between paintings and sculpture, examining the physical nature of the work. Cooke majored in printmaking at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. She received her BFA at Tufts University (Medford, MA) and a MAT at Reed College (Portland, OR). She has exhibited extensively, including a retrospective at the Art Gym at Marylhurst University (Marylhurst, OR), and exhibitions at Portland Art Museum (Portland, OR), and Tacoma Art Museum (Tacoma, WA). She has been the recipient of numerous prestigious grants, including the Flintridge Foundation Award for Visual Art (Pasadena, CA), Regional Arts & Culture Council Visual Artist Fellowship Grant (Portland, OR), Oregon Arts Commission Individual Artist Fellowship in Painting (Salem, OR) and the National Endowment for the Arts Visual Artist Fellowship. Her work is included in the collections of the Portland Art Museum (Portland, OR), Tacoma Art Museum (Tacoma, WA), School of the Museum of Fine Arts (Boston, MA), and Boise Art Museum (Boise, ID), among many others.
Judy Cooke, Pink, 2021, oil and wax on wood, 2.75 x 12.25 x 2"