Reva Lucille Wood (great-aunt), 2016. Acrylic and pencil on canvas. 10" x 10"
PAUL KENNETH paints portraits, but he isn't a portrait painter. His works are based on a variety of sources from photographs of his distant ancestors to the first bloodcurdling screams in horror movies. He uses gestural paint application, line drawing and a collapsing of foreground and background to express his interpretation of how these unknowable people and characters might feel about being painted. Paul earned his BFA in Painting at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2010. Since then he has exhibited throughout Chicago, including shows at Mana Contemporary, LVL3 Gallery, Ebersmoore Gallery, Heaven Gallery and the stARTup Art Fair. Paul had his first solo exhibition One Wall: Curious Kin (2016) at Jackson Junge Gallery in the fall of 2016. He will be featured in the 2017 summer edition of Studio Visit Magazine. Paul lives and works in Chicago.
OtherPeoplesPixels: All the works currently on your
website are portraits, but your style of rendering the human face isn’t
exactly realistic. How do you approach the age-old form of the portrait?
What’s changed about your approach over the years?
Paul Kenneth:
I approach my portraits not as a depiction of a person, but rather a
portrayal of a personality through a defined set of mark making. This
idea is the fundamental foundation of my practice.
When I began
painting twelve years ago, I wanted to pay homage to the history of the
portrait genre while investigating the relationship between the human
body and paint. My first breakthrough was while attending The School of
the Art Institute of Chicago. During my final years of earning my BFA, I
constructed a complete series which was entirely based on babies. Until
that point, I had approached the portrait in a straightforward manner
by attempting to create a literal representation of the subject matter.
While creating this series, I discovered that the paintings were more
unnerving when the subject was rendered in a half completed state. The
most recent change in my approach came with my last series of work Curious Kin,
where I depicted portraits of my ancestors. In this series I
incorporated drawing elements over and under the paint. This latest
exploration has allowed me to fuse my drawing and painting practices
while also highlighting to the slighted underdrawing.
Franklin DuBois Sidell (grandfather), 2016. Acrylic paint and pencil on canvas. 10" x 10"
OPP: Have you always only painted the human face? Tell us a bit about earlier work.
PK: I have investigated many subject matters in my painting
practice but I always find myself returning to the human face. Some of
my earlier work focused on portraits of sad cats, dead owls, and fast
food. In these paintings, I emphasized the traditional tropes of kitsch,
the grotesque and pop art.
OPP: Tell us more about Curious Kin. How is the way you chose to render them connected to the distance between you?
PK: Curious Kin
was sourced from images that were taken from family photo albums from
the late 1800s to the early 1980s. I invested a considerable amount
research to trace the exact relation of each individual as this
information was not recorded in many of the albums. The title of each
piece is the name of the person followed by their exact relation to me.
Some of the portraits are rather direct relations like
great-grandparents while others are extremely far removed with a few
completely unknown. With the exception of my grandparents, I did not
have the privilege to know any of these people even though we are
connected by blood and family bonds. As each portrait was made I strived
to maintain a sense of respect to the ancestor while imposing my
creative aesthetic in the mark making. In a way, each of these paintings
is a loose self-portrait.
Mary Marquis (great-grandmother), 2016. Acrylic and pencil on canvas. 10" x 10"
OPP: What about works like Augusta Hulda Verch (second great-grandmother) and Mary Marquis (great-grandmother),
both from 2016, in which they faces are partly covered over? It’s
almost like these women are silenced by your paint. It makes their eyes
look panicked to me.
PK: These two paintings in particular
demonstrate the idea of myself, the creator, giving consciousness to
his subjects the way Frankenstein gave consciousness to his monster.
During this creation process I ask myself, what is he thinking? and how does she feel about what I am doing to her? At times, their gaze suggests a state of unease with the way that I have depicted them.
Garrett Wood (fourth great-grandfather), 2016. Acrylic paint and pencil on canvas. 10" x 10"
OPP: I’m really interested in the way the backgrounds—whether stripes, ovals, halos or horizon lines—intersect the line-drawn faces, which highlights parts of the faces, often the eyes. Talk about this choice.
PK:
Throughout my practice, the background holds as much importance as the
painterly and drawn elements on the surface. I highlight the process and
materiality in each piece by leaving much of the ground visible. The
stripes, ovals and blocks of gesso ground are formal additions that
level the subject matter. This flattening of the portrait removes it
from a representational space forcing the image to hover in a state of
flux. The cropping and placement of the face on the canvas in relation
to the background shapes is critical to achieve the most active visual
balance. This balancing act tends to revolve around the subject’s eyes.
Thus, the eyes anchor the painting preventing the portrait from drifting
into complete abstraction.
Penny Appleby, 2017. Acrylic and pencil on paper. 5" x 7"
OPP: Tell us about the Scream Queens, which is a new direction. So far, these are all from the 60s. Why did you start here? Where do you see the series going?
PK: Scream Queens
is a new series of works that delves into the horror films of my youth.
Each piece investigates the cinematic moment when the heroine reacts to
the monster with a bloodcurdling scream. By removing these women from
the context of the source, their fear becomes a direct reaction to the
manner in which I have depicted them. These women are afraid of the
monsters they have become. The subjects of these portraits are sourced
from various films that range from the 1960s through the 1980s. I am
drawn mostly to this thirty-year period of cinematography as I consider
it the golden era for the horror film genre. The trajectory of this
series holds many possibilities, and I plan to continue exploring the
use of paper as a substrate as well as further developing the cut and
pasted acrylic paint technique.
OPP: You've said you are interested in the grotesque and your new series demonstrates an interest in terror. What in the world or in your life makes your own face turn to a grimace?
PK: I am rather immune to gooey gore and the average creepy crawly. But there
are a few specific specimens that come to mind when contemplating my own
terrors. Here is my filthy five from gross to wretched:
Featured Artist Interviews are conducted by Chicago-based artist Stacia Yeapanis. When she’s not writing for OPP, Stacia explores the relationship between repetition, desire and impermanence in cross-stitch embroideries, remix video, collage and impermanent installations. She is an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Fiber and Material Studies at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where received her MFA in 2006, and was a 2011-2012 Artist-in-Residence at BOLT in Chicago. Her solo exhibitions include shows at Siena Heights University (2013), Heaven Gallery (2014), the Annex Gallery at Lillstreet Art Center (2014) and Witness, an evolving, durational installation at The Stolbun Collection (Chicago 2017), that could only be viewed via a live broadcast through a Nestcam. Now that the installation is complete, you can watch it via time lapse. Her solo show Sacred Secular is on view through October 4, 2017 at Indianapolis Art Center.