Jonathan Kelly

Jonathan Kelly is the winner of the first West London Art Prize.

‘I constantly question what my practice is about, like every artist does, or should. I love art for its legacy and tradition, for all its great figures and metaphysical achievements. Historicized it becomes palpable and purposeful, but making art today is a hysterical activity, best approached with a balance of rigorous examination and ignorance. My works hinge on a wilful misinterpretation of art’s history, believing that I must question the validity of our collective knowledge, and treat it as a series of poorly remembered anecdotes.

Cenotaph of The Avant Garde – the assertion that the Avant Garde has died and that this humble structure is its empty grave is wilfully naïve. This places its author and subsequent artists in an awkward and paradoxical position where they - without any possibility of joining or establishing a vanguard - become mere craftsmen. Seemingly, in this case a craftsman with very low technical ability and full of misguided arty ideas.

The Myth of Painting series – many seductions in as many guises from Swan to Bull to Shower of Gold; Zeus’s conquests became more and more ridiculous, abstract and overblown. To keep these simplistic oral myths alive through millennia required embellishment, grounding in a false history and a heavy dose of twisted logic. I find many parallels between these ridiculous yet ingenious tales, and their survival, with the current predicament of art, especially painting.’

Exhibited at Griffin Gallery in FACK! West London Art Prize 2013 in June 2013.

EDUCATION

Postgraduate Diploma in Fine Art – Royal Academy Schools, London, Present

BA (Hons) Fine Art: Painting – Wimbledon College of Art, London, 2011

Foundation Dip.Art & Design – Hereford College of Art & Design, Hereford, 2007 

(Last updated 10.11.2014)