Small-Scale Sculptures

See Jay Kelly’s work in WTP Vol. VI #6

All works are mixed media; various combinations of metal,
Japanese paper, gesso, acrylic, and/or wood.
Sizes range between 3″ and 12″

Jay Kelly’s small-scale sculptures are recognized for their whimsicality and enigmatic origins. They share a lightness of form and an acute senes of proportion and color. His drawings are made with graphite, pastel, and colored pencil on vellum, and consist of linear arrangements that appear to float in space. No larger than twelve inches tall, his sculptures are a combination of wire, nickel silver, wood, gesso, and paint with textures that vary from woven wire, spiky protrusions, diaphanous Japanese paper nets, and smooth, non-referential wooden forms. A self-taught artist from Pasadena, California, he began his career as a photorealist painter, shifting his focus to pure abstraction in the late 1990s. Jay Kelly’s work can be found in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; The British Museum, London, England; The Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York, NY; The San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego, CA; The Yale University Art Museum, New Haven, CT; and among many other private and public collections.

Images courtesy of the Jim Kempner Fine Art Gallery.