Process
By an observer
Kerry paints with confidence and audacity, and with no discernible advance planning other than selecting one large canvas versus another. Faced with the blank canvas, the choice of colours and the covering of the empty space is often swift, and produces an initial layer of often surprising variegation and intensity. There is rarely any figurative drawing that occurs, purely instinctive colour selection and brushstrokes. Pausing and observing this initial setting of paint with a critical eye, deciding what is pleasing, what to highlight, what to cover, what to build on, produces in the next phase, forms and patterns that gradually start to define the theme and layout of the canvas. Seldom figurative even after the initial phase, the process is more about differing techniques of paint application- use of knives, rollers, sponges, dripping, pouring, scraping, even hosing- as much as additional colours enter the frame, with much careful observation in between bursts of activity which are always bold. The full space of the canvas is generally in play, and spatial distribution seems random to a viewer. There is certainly joyous experimentation and a relish for colour as well as patterns and effects of the paint that emerge; this appears very emotional painting with little rational logic applied. Then, and then; sometimes in the moment with a shout of affirmation, more often after a canvas is set aside, looked at often, but not touched (weeks can elapse); then, then, after rotating a canvas every which way, observing the shapes and patterns, the perspectives and colour variations, a figurative scene or person can appear. The seemingly random paint application in individual planes and fields taken from the inner mind and visual memory has produced a figure, a landscape, an interior, deconstructed before but now identifiable in its whole. Once spotted, the entire composition falls into place, the seemingly random forms and colours yielding to a harmony that is then highlighted with additional paint, in generally the finishing touches. Paint-pens may be used to define the forms further with a sure hand that is often cheekily cartoon-like; occasionally with pastels, sometimes with additional paint to highlight a specific view, occasionally with a colour wash to alter the hues somewhat. The completed paintings have a serene resolution, a product of this creative process. An incomplete painting is a question still waiting to be answered, and requires some patience to wait for the response. In the meantime, a new canvas beckons.
--Cecilia A.P. Mortimore