HEATHER RYAN KELLEY : STORIELLA

FIRST WEDNESDAY OPENING RECEPTION: 10/03, 6 - 9 P.M.
artICULATE aRTIST tALK: sUNDAY, 10/07 AT 4 P.M.

With Storiella, Heather Ryan Kelley’s latest exhibition at BRG, the Lake Charles, LA based artist turns to collage, drawing inspiration from James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake, in creating a series of works “in response to each page of the text using as raw material my own midden of paper ephemera, found objects, etching and relief proofs, reproductions of my paintings, printed matter, and debris of the studio.”

As Kelley puts it, “Collage was at the heart of Joyce’s writing methods. He wrote: ‘I am quite content to go down to posterity as a scissors and paste man for that seems to me a harsh, but not unjust description.’ The goal of this body of work is to investigate Joyce’s methods of creation and to impart to the viewer a sense of the expansiveness and mystery of Joyce's great work.”

Storiella is composed of 48 collages corresponding to the 48 pages of the chapter, pages 260-308. The collages use the format of composition notebook pages, and based upon the collages is an artist’s book bound in the manner of a school composition book.

A BRG artist member since 2013, Kelley’s work is included in the collections of the New York Public Library, Cornell University, The Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas, the State University of New York at Buffalo, the Museum of Southeast Texas, the Center for Photography at Woodstock, The Paul and Lulu Hilliard University Art Museum at ULL, and the Kansas City Art Institute.

This exhibition is presented alongside the latest works from Jamie Baldridge, David Horton, and Kristine Thompson. All works from these four artists are on view, free of charge, during normal gallery hours (12 - 6 p.m., Tue - Sun) through November 1, 2018.