The artwork of Kristine Kelly, our featured artist at the Cypress Gallery this month, brings both those states of weather and feeling to her show “Painting with Glass.” Kelly is a painter, who uses the unique medium of glass.
Kelly began her art adventure in glass art thirty years ago, making fused glass jewelry and decorative pieces formed in molds. Once she discovered the art of landscape painting using kiln-fired glass, there was no turning back. Her work exploits the colors, opalescence, and translucence of glass.
Glass as a medium brings the outside world into the the work of art. Reflections, transparency, and even the movement of the viewer will effect it. In “Spring at Jalama,” light flickers and glides across the surface, catching in highlights on the clouds. The viewer can peer into many of the pieces, as into a tide pool. In “Fields of Gold” this effect is enthralling. You are in the artist’s world.
Kelly creates environments of heightened sensitivity. She has the ability to give the viewer a feeling of distance using opaque glass, or a feeling of nearness through the use of tactile three-dimensional glass. This show is a pleasure for the senses, full of beautiful things to inspire you. It is up through May 25.