How do I select artwork to feature? The answer is simple. If I love a piece, I can’t stop thinking about it. It’s like I have a crush, feeling giddy when I see or think about it. I have such a crush on all artworks by Kelly Sheppard Murray.
Her colorful biomorphic nature-inspired forms are utterly captivating. She works with a material called encaustic, a colored wax painting technique, that she paints over industrial aluminum. She draws inspiration for the aluminum shapes from plants, moss, lichen, fungi, shells, and other geological forms. Kelly clusters her biomorphic sculptures in groups. These clusters invite the viewer to contemplate the relationship between color and shape.
In her exhibition at Charlotte Russell Contemporary, In Proximity, in 2022, she introduced clustering her sculptures in concentric circles. I gasped when I first saw this body of work. Vibrant colored sculptures bounce off the wall beckoning the viewer to come closer.
A teacher, a mother, and an artist, Kelly’s work is rooted in the practice of small daily acts of making.
For her piece featured in the exhibit, The Early Hours, Days, Weeks, 2021, she started with 24 outer elements. The number 24 relates to the number of hours in the day and the circle ties into cycles. This piece began with three pigments (Cobalt Teal, Cad. Yellow light, and Alizarine Crimson), which she mixed to create a gradient. The range of saturation of each color suggests a steady shift from one to another, like the regular shifts that happen throughout the hours of the day. This piece reflects how color and shape convey her experience as an artist, mother, and teacher.
What I love most about Kelly’s work is that I am always excited to see what comes next. I have featured her artwork in four exhibitions; with each exhibit, she has expanded her practice even more resounding. She is even experimenting with folding paper, introducing a new medium to continue exploring color, form, and nature. I can not wait to see more of her work!
x, Charlotte
