KELLIE TALBOT

Exhibition at the Virginia Inn November 1st through December 31st, 2012 / Signage from New Orleans, Seattle, Leavenworth and Vancouver, B.C.

JULY 5TH - JULY 28TH 2012 CORE GALLERY: This series is both a visual tour of New Orleans architecture, signage and cemeteries as well as a focus on a very particular character of New Orleans known as Ruthie the Duck Lady. Ruthie was an emblem of the Quarter. As a young girl she raised ducks and they followed her through the streets. Throughout her life her trademarks were her roller skates, a wedding gown and a floppy hat. These paintings of Ruthie are as a duck herself. She is a bride, an old woman and the ever present fixture of the Quarter, Napoleon Bonaparte. Like Ruthie, the city of New Orleans is eccentric. It is a city in a constant state of decay and rebirth. It is a city with a sense of humor and a sense of history. These paintings are an homage to an unconventional city and the characters who’ve called it home.

Group Show: VIGNETTES at Bherd Studios, Greenwood Seattle, May 11-June 1, 2012

Work at Gainsbourg in Greenwood through November 10th, 2011

Paintings available at Other Coast Cafe in Ballard during the month of October, 2011.

Solo show at Seattle's Virginia Inn

Group show with Greg Boudreau and Kate Protage at Bherd Studios May 2011

Gli Spuntini is a sampling of small paintings based on the subject matter that is reflected in other series. Enjoy these little snacks.

"Featuring the artwork of resident artists John Osgood and Kellie Talbot. Talbot deftly captures and documents the lost craftsmanship of American artifacts and meticulously replicates the deterioration and faded glory of past times. Conversely, Osgood in his quirky, bold palette delves into the emotional side side of the economic downturn. Both artists create their work using bright colors and memorable images from Talbot's oil on canvas Seattle P.I. signage, to Osgood's acrylic & spray, wood cut-out angels down on their luck—their world is bound to strike a chord with the viewer." —Bherd Studios

Jobs that produced tangible objects of iron and steel are being pushed out, traded in grasp of the New. What remains is a language of artifacts in the American landscape formed by signs and industry that communicates through word, design, typography, color and the state of repair. It is this language that conveys society's economic, political, social and moral aims.

Signs are the oldest form of advertising. They are a fundamental factor in trade, commerce and industry. These paintings are inspired by the Neon Graveyard, a 3-acre outdoor collection of old Las Vegas signs. Craftsmanship, color, rust, design and typography form a landscape of American artifacts.

At the peak of WWII, Bremerton was home to an estimated 80,000 people due to the war effort in the Pacific. In the 1970s, Bremerton's population dwindled to just above a quarter of what is was during the war. And in 1978, the Bremerton City Council declared the entire downtown as a "blighted area". As economies change, so do cultures. Jobs that produced tangible products of iron and steel are being pushed out, traded in grasp of the New. These paintings pay tribute to Bremerton's history through the exploration of architecture from its boom years.

The Seattle Grain Facility is a 16 acre terminal on the Seattle waterfront. It has sixty-eight silos that hold 54,000 bushels of grain each and eight shipping bins in the headhouse that hold 40,000 bushels each. With its 3.99-million-bushel grain elevator, the Seattle Grain Facility receives, stores and blends grain. It provides an integral part in the job of transporting grain throughout the world by vessel or train.

This series is entitled "of New Things." They are paintings of industrial objects and landscapes interspersed with portraits of the immigrants who came to populate them. Rerum Novarum - literally, "Of New Things," is an 1891 papal encyclical, or worldwide letter to Roman Catholic Bishops, of Pope Leo XIII stating that workers, as people of God, had a moral right to a living wage and a voice in the workplace. It was the first time the Vatican had come out on the side of labor movement's aspirations and had considerable influence on the way U.S. Catholic bishops--a large portion of whose dioceses abounded in Irish, Polish, German, and Italian immigrant workers--addressed the issue from that time on. --"The Lexicon of Labor," R. Emmett Murray

Robert Henri, an early American painter and teacher, believed that the artist was a manual worker of images and that that made him one with the city and its people. He wanted his students to learn from Walt Whitman and embrace the city. In a "Song for Occupations" Whitman writes: "...The work and tools of the rigger, grappler, sail-maker... In them realities for you and me, in them poems for you and me..." For me, there is beauty in machinery and architecture. Workers do not appear in the paintings, but are felt through their tools and creations. These objects become more beautiful with time.

Cemeteries have long been the subject of art. From ancient poets to Morrisey they remind us of the rules that govern us all regardless of race, culture, wealth or belief. Sun and shadow, light and dark, life and death: eternal themes that prove our time is not new. The low ground of New Orleans and Key West force the dead to live above ground. What cannot be buried becomes its own society. Roads, neighborhoods and overcrowding are human problems and only death quiets the quarrels.

As economies change, so do cultures. The jobs of our fathers, jobs that produced tangible products of iron and steel are being pushed out, traded in grasp for the New. These paintings explore the industrial neighborhoods of Seattle, from Ballard to Georgetown. But instead of being an exercise in nostalgia most everything in the paintings still functions, works ( the dust hopper was razed —shop moved to a new location; the ammo pier was for battleships ). There are no people within the frames, but the workers are felt through their tools.