Your Community / Newark, NJ
Kay Kenny Full Moon in the Meadow with Sheep
249 Summit Ave, Jersey City, NJ
63 Stuyvesant Ave, Newark, NJ
972 18th Ave, Newark, NJ
Artist Bio
Kay Kenny received her BFA from Syracuse University, MA from Rutgers University, and MFA from Syracuse University (all in Visual Arts). Painter, photographer. Writes art criticism and articles on the visual arts for arts magazines. Photography teacher for over twenty-five years at New York University, and the International Center of Photography in New York City.
2016 NJSCA Artist Fellowship for Works on Paper. 2015 Arthur Griffin Legacy Award, Griffin Museum, 2009 Honorable Mention in FineArts Photography Lucie Awards. Three-time recipient of NJSCA fellowship award. Numerous one-person shows, most recently in Medellin, Columbia, Taipei,Taiwan, Lubbock, Texas and New York City. Curated several exhibits, including ''Memory & Loss", a five-person photo-based exhibit at the Mary Anthony Gallery in New York City. Her work is in several notable corporate, museum and private collections. Recent publications about her work include Photography’s Antiquarian Avant-Garde, by Lyle Rexer, Abrams Publishing, Light & Lens,Photography in the Digital Age, & Photographic Possibilities by Robert Hirsch, Focal Press as well as several other photography books. Photo Insider Magazine featured an interview with her about her work in their June issue 2001.
Artist Statement
I have been photographing the rural night in the Northeast for over a decade. This image is part of a larger body of work, “Into the Night in the Middle of No Where”, a poetic tribute to the rural night. In the rural night, the boundaries between the wild and the domestic tend to blur into a potent swirl of mystery, familiarity and anticipated menace. My dreams are here as well as my nightmares.
A few years ago, I started spending time at night in the pasture with a flock of sheep. The farmer warned me to watch my butt and it took some time for the sheep to feel comfortable with me but unlike the foxes, coyotes, feral cats and raccoons that I often glimpsed in the dark, the sheep were content to stand still and graze. I thought them a fitting metaphor for my sleepless nights photographing the rural landscape.
Curator: Connie Rose
Why Connie selected Kay's artwork...
I chose Kay's work because of the delicate painterly quality of her long exposure photography. I love how she creates mystical ambiguous atmospheres, and I feel this piece has a delectable mix of archaic imagery; a suggested shepherd with his sheep overlooking a fire, yet, it's a photograph from the present day. The figure staring into the glow of the fire makes me think about the journey of a wanderer out in the wilderness, and all the stirrings of contemplative isolation, yet, connection with the great outdoors. I believe we suffer when we are starved from nature and meditative reflection. I hope her piece might remind people of this.