This Is Nothing Like I Thought It Would Be
Colleen Kiely
Colleen Kiely, Dog with Egg Hat (#2)
March 24 - May 7, 2022
About The Show
Cove Street Arts is excited to present This is Nothing Like I Thought It Would Be, an exhibition of paintings and drawings by Colleen Kiely.
This is Nothing Like I Thought It Would Be, a line from Laurie Anderson’s 1989 song Strange Angels, references a moment of altered expectations.
The exhibition tracks a continuum between hope and fear, from Victoria, the 2019 painting included in Kiely’s imagined portraits of women, to eight paintings and drawings from her series Dogs with Hats (2004-2006). Similar threads bind these two series including the artist’s masterful balance of humor and gravitas, and the tenderness with which she approaches her subjects.
Victoria (oil and acrylic on wood panel) is part of Kiely’s current enigmatic paintings of women, of which The Boston Globe’s art critic Cate McQuaid recently wrote, “We are all impossible, truly, to portray. Kiely doesn’t try. Instead, she paints the very evanescence of identity.”
The paintings from the artist’s series Dogs in Hats (oil and acrylic paints with glitter, sequins, and fabric) were exhibited at the DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum (Lincoln, MA) in 2005. Former senior curator Nick Capasso wrote in the catalog text: “Kiely addresses campy and lowbrow iconography with sophisticated bravura painting techniques to create highbrow art.” The museum purchased a painting from this series for their permanent collection.
Kiely’s reflections in her artist statement aptly mirror the work in the show, “Though separated by years, the focus remains the same – vulnerability, the circularity of time, and the nature of how and what we see.”
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