Jo Kelley

Flamingo
Stone: Lithographic Crayon and Tusche
1 Run
610mm x 400mm
2006

I am interested in the allegorical and the ambiguity of meaning. The figures and creatures I draw have an incorporeal and chimerical quality. They are on mythic quests that are inferred rather than explained. My own identity and mythologies have a shifting rather than constant reference. The construction of my family history creates an important thread for my work. Stories can be distorted through interpretation. I am engaged in the tension between actual and imaginary information and the question of authenticity.

When I was a small child I was fascinated by sedimentary rock formations and fossils. I liked lithography stones before I had any notion of drawing on them. One of the grounds I use in painting is gesso emulsion, the stones have a resonance of this surface, albeit, with a magnified sensitivity. Lithography has a directness and expression that suits the range I want in a drawing, but for me, it also has an elusive nature that communicates the emotion.

Studio website