James Kennedy Opening Reception at Callan Contemporary

Immaculate geometries and sumptuous surfaces meet in Reverence and Riffs, James Kennedy’s fifth solo exhibition at Callan Contemporary. Kennedy’s unique integration refutes geometric abstraction’s tendency toward shapes and paint application that are severe and impersonal; instead, he imbues forms with warmth, sensuality, and luxuriant brushstrokes that offer generous evidence of the artist’s hand. The exhibition’s title references an homage to historical artists Kennedy admires, an acknowledgment of his own aesthetic evolution, and a sense of play and improvisation he achieves in compositions that seem to channel the intricate rhythms and lyric flights of a jazz riff. In addition to new mixed-media paintings on eucalyptus-wood Masonite, the show also includes a pivotal composition from 2010, Pathways to Enlightenment, which he cites as “a significant transition in my work from densely textured abstract landscape to spatial mode—a great illustration of the morphosis and source material for the paintings today.”