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Front cover image: Vanishing Point, page 14
2. Artist's Statement 4-26.Artworks in The Scenic Route
27. Biography
The Scenic Route marks Kelly Grace's first solo exhibition with Abbozzo Gallery after a year of representation and regular inclusion in the Gallery's main floor displays. The Scenic Route sees a departure from Grace's familiar works, concerning itself instead with a graphic-novel and film inspired format depicting a continuous narrative throughout each painting. This bold new direction is coupled with a pronounced vintage aesthetic, with call backs to the 50's and 60's in the form of the immediately recognizable fashion dawned by the characters, as well as in the depicted technology such as typewriters, thick black and white television sets and, of course, chromed classic cars taking center stage, all rendered in Grace's trademarked style. The entire exhibition is then a movie, as viewers are treated to film style techniques, such as dramatic camera angles and close-ups within the paintings themselves, making The Scenic Route a rare viewing experience not often offered by Gallery's in Toronto. While the subject matter and narrative are quite different, viewers will notice the artist's continued manipulation of light. The paintings Do You Read Me? and Breakfast Broadcast showcase predominately pastel tones interspersed with highlights of bright and lively colours to set dramatic scenes and pull viewing focus, furthering each work's drama and cinema, strengthening the exhibition's genre-bending position as painted cinema.
Ryan MonadjemThis body of work is my most cinematic and narrative to date. I explore the concept of telling a chronological story through several paintings, using scale, placement and pacing to convey the movement and progression of a scene. A smaller scale work will invite the viewer to come closer and experience the intimacy of the story, while a larger scale scene will force viewers to step back and experience the story more objectively. The same characters appear in multiple works to suggest a congruent story. The Scenic Route is a divergence and detour from my previous solo exhibitions. It's the road with more picturesque scenery, the alternate path, the long way around.
These works are inspired by graphic novel and storyboard style as well as soundtracks for films and shows that I watch. For instance, "Title" by Disasterpeace, from the soundtrack of "It Follows", has set the tone and mood of these works. I kept the whole album of this soundtrack in mind and listened to it periodically as I painted.
I've always wanted to create a body of work that tells a continuous story. For How It Started (pg 6) I knew I wanted to tell the origin story of this plot. The models and I went into the photo capture session with this in mind. Not only did we have an empty time capsule house as our stage, I also brought a van full of props and had the hair and makeup ready. I rely heavily on the photo shoot as my reference point so it’s important for my process to have these details worked out so I can invent as little as possible during the drawing and painting stage.
The idea behind the whole plot is that it starts with a UFO sighting that turns into a UFO crash. This crash basically causes a chain of events that puts humans nearest to the site into a "zombie like state.” The rest of the paintings are what follow from this inciting incident. (Spoiler alert: our young child heroin has secret and unexplained powers that her and her mother have kept hidden from the world, hence their hasty escape.)
Although I only want to suggest the story and keep viewers guessing as to what is going on, my ultimate goal with all these works is to introduce these characters, tell their origin stories and have them cross paths somewhere down the line. My intention is to keep people in suspense in anticipation of the next painting or even the next body of work.
With Receptionist By Day (pg 10), Cake (pg 5) and Do You Read Me (pg 4), our characters are in this fictional universe before our inciting incident happens. These depict a small window into what their lives were like, the rest of the works are what comes after.
In the Ride trilogy (pgs 18, 19 & 20), I explore 3 different frames of the same scene. As the frames progress, the subject moves slightly as does what is happening out the window.
The Car Window trilogy (pgs 15, 16 &17) explores the same concept. I have changed the 'camera angle' from a close up which then 'pans' to a wide shot. What the subject is looking at off the canvas, has yet to be revealed and will be explored in future works.
The Portal (pg 26), Waiting (pg 25) and Storm Is Brewing (pg 24), are a bit further in the storyline, a 'flash forward" if you will. I decided to jump around in the timeline in order to return to tell more of the in between moments with more works in another exhibition or for years to come.
Kelly Grace
How
Acrylic
Vanishing Point,
Kelly Grace is an established artist known for her evocative and compelling paintings and drawings depicting cinematic inspired scenes and subject matter. Beautifully executed in a signature style developed through her unique combination of acrylic paint layers, Kelly’s paintings are populated with glamorous film noir heroines and other characters that seem to belong to a bygone era. Often using herself, friends and models as subjects, Kelly carefully stages and photographs her own reference imagery, using curated vintage props and even styling each model’s vintage hairdo herself.
Through her practice, Kelly’s principle objective is that of visual storytelling, coupled with a desire to explore nostalgia and personal memory. The results are intriguing film narrative works that depict only a piece of a larger story, one that the viewer can write for themselves.
Kelly was born in Toronto in the 70’s and raised in the rural area of Stouffville, Ontario. Her paternal grandparents were travelling puppeteers in the local fair and carnival circuit in California in the 1950’s. There are many artists and creatives in Kelly's family that have influenced her technique. Kelly
Grace works out of Toronto where she shares a studio with husband and fellow artist, Shaun Downey.
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Published by Abbozzo Gallery
401 Richmond St. West, Suite 128 Toronto, Ontario M5V 3A8
Credits: Images courtesy of Kelly Grace Catalogue by Quincy Shaw
Back cover image: Car Window 3, see page 17
