FOR THE LOVE OF PAINT

Madelyn Jordon Fine Art is delighted to present FOR THE LOVE OF PAINT, a group exhibition of recent works by Ken Elliott, Adam Handler, Lawrence Kelsey, Sandrine Kern, Wosene Worke Kosrof, Yangyang Pan, and Hunt Slonem. The exhibition will be on view from November 11 - December 24, 2022, with an opening reception on Saturday, November 12, 2022, from 1:00 - 5:00 pm.

FOR THE LOVE OF PAINT is a celebration of Painting--- a foundational element of MJFA’s program over the past 20 years--- through the practice of seven contemporary artists, who have been central to our gallery program.  As the most enduring medium of Western European “high art” over centuries, the tradition of painting began with the earliest humans and continues to be privileged today as a medium for art.   The artists presented have adopted painting as their primary medium, and create paintings with uplifting, life-enhancing qualities, and it is our pleasure to share their works with you.

Colorado artist KEN ELLIOTT focuses on the western landscape and its rich store of inspiration. Painting rural scenery that combines realism with color field tendencies, Elliott alters and abstracts the scenes with bold sweeps of color, creating vibrant, expressionist landscapes that are both animated and serene.

ADAM HANDLER is recognized for his engaging child-like, faux-naif art practice. Using acrylic paint, oil stick, pencil, and markers, Handler’s works feature flat, outlined characters with little to no depth of field. His colorful patterning and playful distortion of form and scale break with tradition and reminds us of our youthful innocence.  Multiple and diverse Influences include Medieval and Renaissance art, and artists such as De Kooning, Dubuffet, and Basquiat.  Handler's art is a unique balance of reverence and esteem for traditional art forms and his need to create an authentic, singular mode of artistic expression.

LAWRENCE KELSEY’s long-term love affair with New York City has been the subject of his artistic oeuvre for close to forty years. With oils and gouache, the artist creates intimate and atmospheric settings that integrate abstraction with realism.  Eliminating unnecessary details for maximum impact and with a focus on the play of light and shadow, Kelsey's lyrical and poetic paintings reveal the psyche of the artist towards his beloved city.

SANDRINE KERN’s landscapes are an intuitive rather than literal interpretation.  Placing importance on the mood of each work, her paintings are devoid of details, preferring instead to convey their essence.  Her newest series, Water Lilies feature gestural interpretations of Monet’s iconic subject.  These works show the artist’s lyrical side, where she freely engages with the history of art as well as her French heritage. 

Inspired by African traditions, personal experience, American jazz, and Western art practices, Ethiopian-born artist WOSENE WORKE KOSROF’s multilayered, polychromatic abstract paintings incorporate the arabesque-like alphabet of the Amharic script as form. By distorting, elongating, dissecting, and reassembling the letters as images, Wosene creates paintings that universally speak for themselves.  The color-drenched surfaces demonstrate the artist’s skill as a colorist and reinforce the feeling of rhythmic movement and ecstatic energy.

Widely recognized for her floral and garden-scape paintings, YANGYANG PAN’s freewheeling, abstract expressionist works reflect both Eastern and Western sensibilities.  Although classically trained in China, Pan’s move to Canada in 2006 foreshadowed an artistic evolution of her work.  Layering paint over paint, her canvases feature thick, textured brushstrokes of varying shapes and colors.  Working with no definitive plan and guided by her emotions, amorphous forms whirl together and merge into a beautifully, chaotic bouquet of saturated color.  Vacillating between botanical representation and abstraction, the dense compositions and vibrant, chromatic palette are inspired by her physical surroundings and personal memories.  

HUNT SLONEM is globally recognized for his distinct, neo-expressionist paintings of bunnies, butterflies, and tropical birds, as well as large scale sculptures in diverse mediums.  With highly textured brushstrokes of vivid, lush colors and serial imagery, Slonem’s compositions often consist of flat spaces with simple forms pushed to the front of the picture plane.  Deeply concerned with the environment and its preservation, Slonem’s aim is to paint uplifting and joyful works that illustrate his love for Mother Earth and its inhabitants.