The Times - Friday, October 22, 2004

Kelly turns to own woodcuts to inspire paintings

by Janet Purcell

In 1993, Thomas Kelly entered a 10-by-10-inch woodcut in Artworks' "Smallworks" juried exhibition. It was the first time he'd entered a juried show and he was accepted. The woodcut was "Ellis Islanders."

Now more than a decade later, a print made from that same woodcut and a painting based on the image are part of his one-man show, "Against the Grain, Woodcuts and Paintings" at The Artful Deposit Gallery in Bordentown.

On exhibit are 17 woodcuts Kelly made 10 years ago and 16 recent paintings based on those woodcuts. One painting, "The Smokers," was done in 1993 and is what he refers to as his first successful painting.

"I studied printmaking before attempting painting, so this series is really revisiting my earliest works," he says. "But just recently, I was going through the woodcuts and picked out the ones I liked best and decided to do paintings of them. The project was quite interesting, easier because the composition was already done, but restrictive because of that, too. Color, size and interpretation were the only choices to be made. It was very strange selecting colors for pieces I'd seen in black abd white for a decade."

Kelly says, ultimately, the colors he chose were dictated by the prints. Prints where dense black areas are predominant translated into dark paintings, while a brighter palette seemed most fitting for paintings from prints that showed more areas of light.

"Ellis Islanders," for example, shows the parents and their child with a bright blue sky behind them - a sunnier depiction of that place and time than we are used to seeing. Ten years ago, a Good Times review of the original woodcut print said: "Their expressions are haunting as they stare out into their uncertain futures." The resultant painting with its brighter colors alleviates the sense of foreboding present in the print.

A solid black background was used in the print of "The Pageboy" to set off the striking three-quarter profile of a serene woman with that distinctive hairstyle. Kelly chose to keep the black background when he went to the 32-by-29-inch companion painting, adding only a delicate pink skin tone and softly highlighted reds and browns to the hair.

He kept to shades of gray for "The Shadowboxer." In the print, the boxer, arms raised and fists clenched, is a solid black shape that is reflected on the wall in horizontal cuts into the wood that print as black and white. In the painting, the boxer and his shadow are dark gray and light gray against an even lighter gray wall. Because the print is only black and white, it appears threatening. The addition of warm rose tones to the grays in the painting moves it into the realm of playful exercise.

Kelly's subject matter is so varied, the question begs to be asked: "Where do your ideas come from?" In answer, he produces a notebook full of one-liners and thumbnail sketches. "Cat and the Cricket," "The Embrace," "Adam & Eve," "Woman in the Brambles," "Anxious," "Watchdog" and "Tango" are just a few that made it from his list of ideas to this show.

"When I think of something, I write it down or I just make a quick sketch. I tack the sketch up on the easel and go with it from there and I always go back to the thumbnail because I know that's what I liked in the first place.

His style is distinctive. His figures, spare and simply rendered, have a mysterious quality and all his images come from his head. He copies nothing.

"When I'm doing a painting, I'm designing the clothes, the furniture, the lamps, everything," he says.

About the woodcuts he says, "You can't be predetermined. You go with the grain of the wood and you have to know when to stop. With them, you're taking away and you can't put it back. It's really hands-on and you're really into it. It's a good discipline of patience."

Kelly grew up in Mercerville, graduated from Steinert High School, studied tool and dye-making at Mercer County Vo-Tech and earned an associate's degree in fine arts from Mercer County Community College. He calls himself "a blue-collar painter, a hard worker, a serious painter from Trenton."