June Kelly Gallery

Geometry and patterns figure largely in our interpretation of the universe through our senses, science, and cultures. Yet importantly, anomalies appear in both natural and constructed systems. Indeed, the tenacity of much life may be credited to anomalies that could be called flaws. Philosophy, science and observation lead me to contend with the effects of random forces within orderly systems. Using mostly paper and ink, slow processes induce an equanimity I find useful in these times. This series cross-pollinates art, science, and personal experience, and includes references to games, drugs, idioms, and autobiographical elements. Starting with a systematic structure inspired by mathematics, I use visual layering to look at tolerance thresholds for nonconformity or corruption, noting how the mind selectively filters information when seeking authenticity and meaning. Logic, perception, love, and uncertainty drive my curiosity. Reason, intuition and drawing are how I puzzle it out.

Seeing In Tempo, intriguing perspectives of landscape by playwright, book author, and photographer Calvin Ramsey will be exhibited in his first U. S. showing with the June Kelly Gallery, 166 Mercer Street. Opening on Thursday, July 1, the work will remain on view through July 30, 2021. Ramsey says photography forces him to see and endow ordinary things with a rhythm, tempo, and purpose. This body of landscape photos shot from the windows of trains moving across the country and Ramsey’s sojourns walking in wanderlust on New York’s Upper East Side coerce one to look at landscapes in a unique way…echoing passage of time. In 2004 while traveling from Atlanta to Valdez, Alaska, through the camera’s eye, Ramsey conceived of landscape not unlike independent film stills intuitively captured while speedily passing. The intermedia of non-representational language with visual elements fascinates as visual poetry. Here, each of Ramsey’s photographs is as a time capsule with viewer mesmerized by image and tempo of the train wheels revolution or urban pattern repetition. Ramsey’s images whether patterns of nature or man convey an impressive sense of fleetingness as in essence of time. Ramsey’s images are not merely digital color photographs but triggers of psyche recognitions. Tempo abides the viewer in the visual sweep of each image as stimuli probing consciousness in which liaison form with remembrance or foretelling. Ramsey is known more as a playwright and book author, having written and produced the musical Bricktop and Ruth and The Green Book, the picture book inspiration for the Academy Award-winning film, The Green Book. In 2004 along his creative path traveling from Atlanta to Valdez, Alaska for the Edward Albee Theater Conference (The Last Frontier Theater Conference) the concept for this body of landscape images was realized. “To see with my own rhythm, tempo and purpose is the firm ground that holds me. My 'dream voice' becomes louder and more visible the more I create through my plays, books, and photography. We all have this living creative muscle within us." Ramsey was born in Baltimore, Maryland and grew up in Roxboro, North Carolina. Having lived in Atlanta, Georgia, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, Santa Monica, California, Oaks Bluff, Massachusetts and Saint Croix, and Saint John U.S. Virgin Islands, he now divides his time between New York City and Sarasota, Florida. Ramsey studied at UCLA. Ramsey’s photographs have been exhibited in the U.S. Virgin Islands and are included in private collections in the United States. Throughout the varied sequences in his career, Ramsey received the Jane Adams award for Ruth, The Green Book, and Belle, The Last Mule at Gees Bend, the Bank Street College Best Book award, Texas Blue Bonnet Award, Forward Magazine Best Book award, ALA Notable Book award, and the Star Review School Library Journal Award. Ramsey was a recipient of the distinguished Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Drum Major for Justice Award. Ramsey is a member of the National Arts Club, New York, Sons of The American Revolution, and a former Trustee at the Bronx Museum of Art, New York.

As an artist, new information and experiences are vital to my work. The shifting and selection of those bits and pieces of information that are most useful spark and enlighten my creative energies. The need to know compels further exploration in the search for new ways of making “visible.” The result of this pursuit hopefully is continual growth and further development. Making visible, for me, is about the asking of questions. Questions cause search, leading to discovery, resulting in invention. This is a process that invites the discovery of new ways of realizing one’s own sensibility and voice. The kind of information I need as an artist is the result of constant search. The information that I use becomes that vehicle that best enables and encourages discovery, invention and the process of “making visible.” -Moe Brooker

Affinity with Brazil:1982-Present, an exhibition of photographs by Charles Martin reflecting near four decades of his absorbed attraction with Brazil - its environment, people, customs, and architecture, will open at the June Kelly Gallery, 166 Mercer Street, on Friday, Sept 11. The work will remain on view through October 6. While Martin says his photographs are usually unplanned and carried out quickly, there is the sense of instantaneous and deep connection with his subjects. Keen perceptiveness is probable primacy for Martin in his observation of everyday reality in Brazil - region after region.

My new series of work are inspired by the powerful moments and places I find while traveling. So, in 2018 I went to Puerto Rico and Costa Rica to find inspiration for my new works and help with the relief effort. While there, I visited Playa Negra, a black sand beach, formed from an earlier volcano. Inspired by the magma, I brought some back and incorporated it's rich and mysterious color and texture to integrate it into my latest body of work. Seeing the uniquely colored feather patterns of Costa Rican birds first hand while surrounded by fauna and butterflies left me with an intense colorful feeling that I worked to capture in my paintings. These authentic discoveries and moments help enrich each work with its own story and concept and their own unique world.

June Kelly Gallery is pleased to begin the year 2020 with presentation of Carl E. Hazelwood in his first show at the gallery. Drawings and Collages, recent work in which the visual play between minimalist color and form stimulate subliminally.