Jonathan Kelly
b. 1988, United Kingdom
Jonathan Kelly (b. 1988, Hereford, UK) employs a pictorial vocabulary that is simultaneously rich and reductive, self-referential and all-encompassing. With roots in minimalism and modernity, Kelly's approach to painting is driven by the notion of the absolute, the reduced, essential form. He recognises an affinity between abstraction, natural sciences and spirituality as ways to visualise the unseen, with the line as a fundamental element. Through luminous colour, texture and the use of pared down recognisable symbols he explores - and questions - structures of shared human experience, consciousness, belief, and the raw mechanics of love.
Kelly's images feel discovered rather than painted; they emerge from multiple layers of colour whose order appears indistinguishable, as if the paint has suddenly illuminated and awakened timeless forms that lay beneath. Iterations of motifs in confident, decisive lines function as mantras or anchors in a search for some pure essential truth, a quest that is as universal as it is deeply nuanced and personal. In a nod to sacred geometry, he often uses shaped canvases, mainly variations of crosses and circles with interlocking arcs, semicircles and waves formed by pulsating lines that hint at a vastness of time and space whilst remaining intimate, familiar and flawed.
Jonathan Kelly is a graduate of Wimbledon College of Art (2011) and the Royal Academy Schools (2017).