Marcus Kenney

Kenney’s mixed media paintings and sculptures with found objects are well known and critically acclaimed. His masterful practice of collage techniques and assemblage are hallmarks of his oeuvre. Kenney’s narrative works present a tumultuous clash of imagery reflecting America’s melting pot of culture and consider issues including consumerism, environmentalism, religion, mortality, identity, race relations, and authority. Pictures of children that seem intimately connected to the surrounding wild and lush landscape re-assert Kenney’s deep connection to his own childhood in rural Louisiana and the mystery and mythology of the strangeness, danger, and beauty that were his daily experience of the world. The natural innocence of children in an ever more threatening world blazes out of the shadows in captured moments of play and fanciful imagination. Kenney’s central themes are illustrated with a catalog of imagery that includes children, fire, animals, nature as both sinister and beautiful, connotations of theater and identity (stage/curtains, masks/costumes), and racial juxtapositions.

 

While in residence, Kenney will paint his interpretation of Bruegel’s Tower of Babel on a large scale 8’x8’ canvas, as well as a few smaller works with the characters and detailed scenes. As a regualr practice, he frequents flea markets, thrift stores, and garage sales to source materials and plans to search San Diego for indigenous ephemera to include in his work. 

 

Originally from rural Louisiana, Marcus Kenney has lived in Savannah, Georgia for the last 15 years. He earned a MFA from the Savannah College Of Art And Design in 1998. His work has been exhibited in New York, London, Miami, Chicago, Atlanta, Hong Kong, Paris, New Orleans, and St Louis. He has been included in numerous group shows, art fairs, and solo exhibitions including a major ten year survey featuring nearly 50 works. His work rests in many private and public collections throughout the world. Kenney has been featured in numerous publications including Art in America, Artpapers, NY Times, South Magazine, Oxford American, New American Painter, Boston Globe, Atlanta Journal Constitution, and New York Arts Magazine.