Local artist Kellen Stanley’s oeuvre is centered on her roots. She weaves her connections to family, place and memory into experiential installations that integrate performance and scent to envelop viewers into the work in a way that cannot be achieved by simply gazing at a painting.
Stanley’s latest exhibition, “Rite of Passage,” is on a direct trajectory following her 2015 work Western Drive, a meditation on her family’s lake house that was made in reverence of her grandparents and beloved childhood memories. Now that her grandparents have passed, Stanley’s parents have assumed the mantle of family elders, and “Rite of Passage” delves into this transition as they come full circle to spend their golden years in same geography as the lake house.
“Rite of Passage” celebrates the mother/daughter relationship in particular with a series of poetry that portrays Stanley’s mother, “who once was a painter before switching career tracks to education.” With these words, Stanley confronts her growing sense of mortality and meditates on themes of “loss, identity and necessary repair.”
On Thursday evening, Stanley will excavate her exhibition, revealing one line of poetry at a time as her mother watches, taking in “Rite of Passage” for the first time along with the other viewers.
Free, 6-9pm Thu June 6 and Fri June 7, 5-8 p.m. Wed.-Fri., noon-8 p.m. Sat., and noon-5 p.m. Sun. through June 30, FL!GHT Gallery, 112R Blue Star, facebook.com/flightSA
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This article appears in Jun 5-18, 2019.
