Peter Kelly. Chappel Galleries 2018.

In this new exhibition, Peter Kelly takes the viewer on a journey around a wide range of locales from the rural Essex countryside to the picturesque cities of Paris, Venice and Istanbul. His paintings evoke a mysterious world of lonely vistas, empty passageways and atmospheric expanses of land and water. Although Kelly has shown widely in group shows in recent years, this exhibition of thirty-seven paintings- ranging from landscapes to interiors to portraits- is his first solo show since 2008.

Kelly has enjoyed a long and successful career. He inherited an interest in the arts from his grandfather, John Gerrard Keulemans, a noted Victorian bird illustrator. Early on, he trained in graphic design at the West Ham School of Art and Technology, and the respected Central School of Art and Design in London. Over the years, he has won many prizes and exhibited in countless shows, notably the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy. He is a member of the prestigious New English Art Club, whose Presidents have included James McNeill Whistler, and a senior member of the Royal Society of British Artists, an esteemed society founded in the early-nineteenth century and with former members such as Walter Sickert and Gwen John.

The works in this exhibition particularly emphasize Kelly’s fascination with the play of light. Sunsets shimmer over water; patterns of light and shade cross snowy expanses; fields are shrouded in early morning mist. Often these pictures have inventive compositions, as in the unusually high horizon line in a sea view of the Suffolk coastal village of Walberswick. Generally, Kelly favors rustic, pastoral views but, at times, as in Tenements, towers and factories, New York he embraces more industrial subjects.

The exhibition also includes examples of Kelly’s trademark interior views, for which he is perhaps best known. In one minimal composition, an illuminated doorway offsets an expanse of empty floor. In another, a solitary monk stands enigmatically in the corner of a cloister. The latter picture suggests an unspoken narrative, and this is true too in the winter scene, Walking by the Fallen Tree. For what is this man waiting? Among the most striking images in the show are three views of sculpture in the Fitzwilliam and Ashmolean Museums. Kelly here renders ancient forms in daringly abstract fashion.

Kelly’s paintings speak to a range of artistic tradition, and are informed by regular visits to museums and his extensive library of art books. His interiors reference the Dutch seventeenth-century tradition of Johannes Vermeer or the early twentieth-century views of the Danish painter, Vilhelm Hammershøi. His cityscapes- notably his canal vistas- show an admiration for the American, Whistler. His rural landscapes and seascapes suggest a continuing interest in Impressionistic light effects, and the British twentieth-century artist, Edward Seago.

Taken as a group, the pictures in this exhibition showcase the variety of Kelly’s sensitive painting. They evoke silent moments of peace and reflection, offering a meditative counterpoint to the rapid pace of the contemporary world.

Simon Kelly, PhD.
Curator and Head of Department of Modern and Contemporary Art, Saint Louis Art Museum, USA.