Todd Kelly

In this series, each painting is titled "Setting", with its date of completion. Setting suggests stage sets, landscapes, as well as the personal settings embedded in our devices—the background systems that quietly shape how we see and operate. Images of architecture, furniture, and interiors appear alongside spaces that feel provisional, as though they are being assembled in real time. Recurring forms include strokes that suggest the limbs of trees, as well as images of my own arms and legs. Limbs function as connectors—extensions that reach, support, and locate the body in space. Chairs also have arms and legs, mirroring the human figure while also implying rest, waiting, or absence. The body becomes entangled with architecture and landscape, and distinctions between figure and setting begin to blur.

My process depends on the coexistence of different ways of seeing. Photographic images sit beside painted marks; hard-edged graphic letters share space with loose brushwork and improvised imagery. These elements are not meant to resolve, instead, the paintings hold multiple visual languages at once, reflecting how perception itself is layered, fragmented, and unstable.

These "Settings" represent my attempt to speak in a language that has taken many years to assemble. It is made from accumulated gestures, repeated images, habits, and unresolved questions. I don’t expect to fully understand this language yet. Like any language, it will take time to learn what is being said, and perhaps longer to hear what is being asked. These paintings mark a beginning rather than a conclusion—a place to stand, to look from, and to remain open to what comes next.

--Todd Kelly