No matter how small, the emptiness is there.
Elizabeth Kenney recognizes that God-sized hole in her heart, and how life is a search for meaning to fill it. That can be through friendships, through work, through service. Each allows you to connect to a more expansive purpose and group of people.
Kenney has found painting to be her portal to that bond.
[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]
“For me, I’m looking for my connection to the divine, and others. There is so much unknown and mystery in life, and we’re just trying to be something greater than larger than ourselves,” she said. “That’s when we feel complete.”
Kenney’s artistic work speaks to the power of relationships, blending powerful images of nature, the cosmos and landscapes with the emotions of figures. Her images tell a story. Swirls of colors and shadow surround young lovers walking together in embrace. A woman loses herself in the guitar as bright swaths of yellow unwind behind her. Two figures sit on a dock in the middle of a lake, the bombastic nighttime sky unfolding above them while the water reflects the stars below.
“I want people to see themselves in the art,” said Kenney, whose work will be featured in an exhibition at the Southside Art League through Feb. 27. “I’m very fond of having silhouettes with their back to the viewer, so you can enter into their world, and reflect with the characters as they process things.”
As Kenney puts together a painting, she wants to reveal something about the world around us. That makes sense, considering that her first love was literature. That approach has served her as an artist, as well.
“Even though I studied literature, it’s been so long and I’ve lived in the visual for so long. Painting all the time, words get more difficult and images tell the story,” she said.
Kenney started her artistic career drawing as a child. Her father was a civil engineer, and their house was filled with piles of old blueprints and plans. She and her brother would draw on the backs of those papers for hours.
“Recently, my older brother was going through the attic in our family home, and he found them and gave them to me. They were pretty entertaining, the perspective and everything,” she said.
That interest in drawing emerged into a more serious endeavor in starts and stops. Kenney continued to draw figures and scenes on her own, but only took one art class in high school — her enthusiasm for the class dampened by the negative attitudes of her fellow classmates.
In college at Indiana University, she decided to take an oil painting class out of curiosity, even though she was studying literature. As she neared graduation, one of her teachers encouraged her to also work towards a bachelor’s degree in fine arts.
“So I stayed an additional two years. I applied for the program and got in; it was only 20 people. Which was kind of nervewracking, since I felt pressured,” she said. “But I was hooked at that point.”
After getting married and having two sons, Kenney was living on the northwest side of Indianapolis when her neighbors helped further her artistic exploration. They encouraged her to go to a drawing class at Herron School of Art and Design for alumni.
From there, her love of art and the unusual circumstances of 2020 led her to the Southside Art League and its art offerings.
“I started a business where I teach art to senior citizens at senior living facilities. But I couldn’t work because of COVID,” she said. “I had never been able to go to the Southside Art League because of distance and I was always working during the day. But now I could go.
“That ended up being a huge blessing for me during this whole time.”
The exhibition at the Southside Art League will focus on Kenney’s approach to portraits, spirit and space. The pieces will feature a variety of techniques and perspectives, giving viewers a wide range of options to examine.
Her hope is that those who see her work find something in it that connects to them, whatever that may be.
“I don’t think you like something until you see yourself in it,” she said. “You have to appeal to something in other people. Art is so subjective, you cannot please everybody all the time. I never know what people are going to like. I’m always surprised.”
[sc:pullout-title pullout-title=”If you go” ][sc:pullout-text-begin]
Elizabeth Kenney exhibition
What: A showcase of paintings by Kenney, who explores various themes of portraits, spirit, and space.
Where: Southside Art League Off-Broadway Gallery, 299 E. Broadway St., Greenwood
When: Through Feb. 27
Gallery hours: 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday
Information: southsideartleague.org. For more information about Kenney, go to elizabethkenney.com or saatchiart.com/elizabethkenney
[sc:pullout-text-end]
