Michael Kennaugh “Black Bird” Exhibition at Moody Gallery

Ten years ago Patrick Palmer, Dean of the Studio School at Glassell School of Art, organized an exhibition of paintings by six abstract artists in the school’s lobby. Palmer promoted the show with several sentences about abstraction by the great abstract artist Arshile Gorky. Palmer’s no fool, and knew that to associate Gorky with the exhibition communicated notions of aesthetic beauty. Michael Kennaugh was included in the show, and I recall gawking at his canvas “On the Other Shore.” Its sensuous colors and harmonious forms knocked me on my butt.

Kennaugh currently has an exhibition at Moody Gallery. His show “Michael Kennaugh: Black Bird” runs through July 9, 2021. Collectors will detect a slight deviation from the past. Colors are deeper, their tonal contrasts more extreme, and his palette includes more darks. He created simpler, sparer, more hard-edged forms. This change in painting style mirrored an emotional shift. Kennaugh lost his father to Covid.

Experiencing loss, he said, made him “want to get the image out in a more immediate way, simpler and bolder. All the while paying attention to a stark silhouette which would aid in the development of a negative space which took equal importance.”

What does “more immediate way” actually mean? I believe it means less willfulness of design. Kennaugh’s starting point is the world around him, landscape and nature. Sensory perception is distilled through the subconscious where emotions divert programmed delineation. What gets elaborated on canvas is less premeditated and more spontaneous. The process of pictorial expression is more intimate.

Kennaugh still coughs-up achingly graceful colors and forms. Just more raw and impulsive.

“Michael Kennaugh: Black Bird” which features a new series of oil paintings as well as sculpture is Kennaugh’s ninth solo exhibition at Moody Gallery.

www.moodygallery.com