Chelsea Music Festival is thrilled to present paintings by Kelly S. Williams, the Festival’s 2024 Visual Artist-in-Residence, in the artist’s first solo exhibition in NYC, part of the Festival’s fifteenth season, “Connecting the Dots.”

Artist Statement–

'Cultivar' is a relatively new word, only about 100 years old, and generally understood as the combination of the words "cultivated" and "variety" in reference to plants. A cultivar is an assemblage of plants, each chosen for distinct desired features, and in most cases, would not exist without human intervention. The resulting plant is not only a new entity, but a new entity borne from the creative, deliberative and nurturing acts of humans. In my studio, I often work in several distinct styles of painting-- I make observational still life paintings, abstract paintings pulling heavily from op art, figurative paintings, and trompe l'oeil paintings that teeter on the verge of sculpture. 

In the studio, I am borrowing the act of grafting from the botanical world and applying it to the act of painting--that is, binding two cuttings together to heal each and create a new work with properties of both: cultivars.  The styles of painting come together in works that don't quite fit the descriptions often assigned to them or, in some cases, the paintings retain their distinct characteristics, but when installed together, begin to highlight the connective tissue growing between them. Cultivars, like paintings, are the result of creative endeavors. Often those endeavors have altruistic goals-- to help a plant regenerate and survive in a changing climate, for example. I think about painting in this way, too. Can paintings be remedies for ailments, solutions to problems?

Additional support for this exhibition provided through a grant from South Arts.