COLLEEN KIELY: This Ain’t No Party, This Ain’t No Disco
February 5 - April 2, 2021
Artist’s reception: March 5th, 5:30 – 8 pm
The artist will be present. Limited visitor capacity, social distancing measures in place, masks required.
Steven Zevitas Gallery is pleased to present This Ain’t No Party, This Ain’t No Disco, an exhibition of new work by Boston-based painter, Colleen Kiely. The exhibition will run from February 5 – March 25, 2021 with an artist’s reception Friday, March 5, from 5:30 – 8 PM.
In this new body of work, Kiely creates fictional portraits that synthesize imagination, found images, and a multitude of art historical sources to explore the fluidity of identity and time. Dressed in patterned clothing and set against a monochromatic field, the larger-than-life figures gaze at something, or someone, just outside the frame. Although each figure stands resolutely alone, collectively, they form a community.
Kiely constructs each named portrait with a catalytic process, transforming color, scale, pattern, facial expression, and gesture through several iterations before a specific presence emerges. The paintings are not meant to capture a specific likeness, rather, they speak to the process of creating a holistic portrait in which immediate decisions and leftover traces of the past converge to form a new whole.
The exhibition’s title, This Ain't No Party, This Ain't No Disco, references a refrain in the Talking Heads’ song “Life During Wartime”, from the 1979 album Fear of Music. This album was a touchstone for Kiely during her formative years as an artist and it continues to speak to our current cultural moment—where isolation breeds a heightened emotional awareness, as we turn to new ways to connect.
In the artist’s words:
“In a time of individual and collective loss, daily life goes on and we navigate our way – slowly maybe, but we keep moving. This body of work is rooted in my love of painting, loss of loved ones, and curiosity about people’s inner lives.”
COLLEEN KIELY (b. Providence, RI) lives and works in Boston, MA. Kiely has recently exhibited work with Attleboro Arts Museum (Attleboro, MA), The Trustman Gallery at Simmons University (Boston, MA), University of New Hampshire Museum of Art (Durham, NH), New Bedford Art Museum (New Bedford, MA), Brattleboro Museum & Art Center (Brattleboro, VT), Sikkema Jenkins (New York, NY), RISD/Works Gallery at the Rhode Island School of Design (Providence, RI), The Drawing Center (New York, NY), and Andrew Edlin Gallery (New York, NY). Kiely’s work belongs to many public and corporate collections including The DeCordova Museum, Fidelity Corporation, and Wellington Management Company, among others. Her work has been written about in numerous publications including Art in America, The Boston Globe, and Art New England, among others. This is Colleen Kiely’s first solo exhibition with Steven Zevitas Gallery.
