Kennedy Bailey
Kennedy Bailey
Kennedy Bailey
Kennedy Bailey (b.1993, Atlanta, GA) is an artist living and working in Brooklyn, NY. Bailey’s paintings investigate the language of structures and neurology by translating and materializing intangible psychosomatic experiences into visual manifestations of disrupted structures. Bailey utilizes the colors black and white, congruent with their interpretation in medical imagery such as MRI scans: a healthy brain is primarily denoted in black, whereas brain damage is marked by white spots signifying an absence of living tissue.
Untitled
2021 Oil on canvas 102 x 76 cm / 40 x 30 in
Bailey’s use of an achromatic color palette is meant to convey a struggle for control, challenging the presumed precedence of black paint and figurative mark-making as being more active and present, versus white paint and the passive canvas. This is accessed through the process of blocking out portions of the oil painted canvas, visibly negating the dark with white penetrating the space. This volte-face invites the viewer to contemplate the chaos that disruption causes to structure no matter how insignificant it might seem.
Untitled
2021 Oil on canvas 102 x 76 cm / 40 x 30 in
Untitled
2021 Oil on canvas 92x 61 cm / 36 x 24 in
Hunter MFA
This spring, the Hunter College MFA Program in Studio Art will graduate 26 artists who completed their degree over the challenging months of the COVID-19 pandemic. These talented MFA Thesis Candidates are exhibiting their work in six group exhibitions at 205 Hudson, in addition to this online spotlight hosted by Hauser & Wirth. At time when the public audience for in-person exhibitions has been limited by the pandemic, we are excited to provide this digital platform to the emerging artists from Hunter College’s MFA Program in Studio Art.
Images: Portrait of Kennedy Bailey. Photo: Néstor Pérez-Molière; Kennedy Bailey, Untitled, 2021. Photo: Néstor Pérez-Molière; Installation view. Photo: Kennedy Bailey; Kennedy Bailey, Untitled, 2021. Photo: Néstor Pérez-Molière; Kennedy Bailey, Untitled, 2021. Photo: Néstor Pérez-Molière