Paintings & Sculptures - BY JASON KENNING

Paintings

Drawings

Sculptures

"Nevermind the Weather" is inspired by the ecology of our digital lives. It is a reflection on the way we consume technology, how it alters the environment, and how our individual choices affect our complex ecosystem.

This series is divided into three sections. The blue and white watercolors act as a prologue and establish the characters. The painted canvases flesh out the disorder and the emotions surrounding these figures. Larger composition and a disconcerting red color scheme help draw the viewer into a foreign landscape. The final section is sculptural. Each ceramic work functions as a physical epilogue for our subjects. They appear trapped forever in icy stone.

I use several repeating symbols and images in this series: barren worlds, alienated figures, cellphones, glaciers, and wires. Over the subjects hangs an ethereal cloud of consciousness and past memories. Jagged lines and networking planes add to a feeling of distressed communication between the characters and their environments. Power lines may connect them to earth, but smartphones imply their bodies are no longer tethered.

They are lone figures breaking connections to the land, their past, and others. Most of the characters stare blankly into their phones, forgetting the world around them. Others break the gaze and force a confrontation with the future. In this exhibit the personal optimism or pessimism of the viewer will ultimately decide how that confrontation ends.