P a i n t i n g s & N a r r a t i v e s
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Corn Mother concepts: The Corn Mother is the archetype of the giver. Our mother. Our earth. The divine feminine.
The first corn mother I painted was completed for my show Forces of Nature – Transcendent Exploration in 2014. I was seeking to express relationships with the earth and the universe by painting the forms in stones, shells and coral. I was exploring my understanding of ideas like release and return. By adding metal leaf, dry metallic and resistance pigments to my oil paints I was able to achieve color effects that changed and moved with the light and time of day. This technique lead to an evolution in my work. I refer to it as organic expressionist. This was the moment when I embraced nature and turned to my internal world as the subject of my paintings. |
"It is important what you see. Art is about the conversation you are having."
"Watching the sky for portents
I fly through holes in the universe
Made by the motherchild of creation
I land to be carried by wisdom turtles
To where the sleeping bear awakens"
- Quote from a Dallas street artist named Roddy
about the work of D YaeL Kelley
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The Bears - The bear is a deeply personal animal and form for me, representing both loved ones and events.
My family has been traveling the corridor between the Ohio River Valley and Florida for many generations. We have a lot of bear stories. In my paintings I return to them again and again. As a child of five or six, on a spring afternoon, in a clearing in the smoky mountains along the Blue Ridge parkway, my family pulled over for a bit of lunch. I wandered off, and happened upon two bear cubs in a clearing. We were about the same size. We seemed to recognize each other as potential friends and having a box of cracker jacks naturally I shared them. As they came closer and closer both their mother and mine noticed. Parents can be funny. My dad seemingly from nowhere snatched me up in his arms and we ended up at the far side of the clearing. The bear cubs ended up at the other. I never got to tell them goodbye and so I think they have remained with me. |
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Waters of Transformation III
This series explores deep cave paths, quiet reflective pools, lush green spaces hidden to most.
Calm places of refuge and retreat.
Where is your power standing ankle deep in water?
This series explores deep cave paths, quiet reflective pools, lush green spaces hidden to most.
Calm places of refuge and retreat.
Where is your power standing ankle deep in water?
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I tied my hair in the tree to have old
things remember me. Owl skull lay in the warm earth to be found and passed from hand to hand, from Clare like brushes and paint. Orchid flower seem to stop the spring as if she would go on and on never dying. Fading so slowly petal by petal, without notice, until the stem was empty. Leaving us the memory of the light, the warm earth, the owl skull. And so I tied my hair in the tree to have old things remember me. painting and poem by D YaeL Kelley |
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Seven
She is temptation, she is salvation Melancholia and Elation She is a destroyer and she is a creator She is a succubus and purest angel She is beyond good and evil She is an angel and a demon She is darkness and she is light She is a phoenix rising higher She is a falling Seraphim She is the chalice holding sacred fire She is the Living, she is the Dead Queen of Heaven, Queen of Hell She should be kind but never mind She is beyond all good and evil. poem by Hal Simon |
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RESONANCE - an ekphrastic
A Life in Four Stages
Stage Four
It’s been a long time since.
Looking back from her days of wisdom and renunciation,
She remembered she was conceived in difficult times
And in a difficult way under a galaxy-filled sky that should have been beautiful.
Stage One
An instar, she thought, in a state of radical change.
Life in liquid suspension.
A slice of life force, possibly halted, possibly hated, but (was) instead permitted life. Cells
fighting to come together, dividing.
Becoming.
More alive with each look, with each emotion, with great possibility.
Stage Two
She discovered herself, letting loose of all control, throwing it out there.
Turning herself over to adventure and discovery.
Not easy in her time.
She may have looked normal from the outside but she wasn’t - normal, she thought, she knew,
on the inside.
Stage Three
She dedicated and contemplated herself and the tumultuous world.
Turning herself over and over for new perspectives.
(At once and again cellular and mobile in a liquid base, internally competing.)
Maturing.
The Wrath she had felt since becoming aware of herself,
That Wrath which she was feeding,
She instead found to be her grace, and in fact, her survival.
Her Exultance!
Turning her thoughts to Kahlil Gibran and his quote that has stood the test of time…
“Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh and
the greatness which does not bow before children.”
poem by Elizabeth Brincklow
Copyright June 2018
A Life in Four Stages
Stage Four
It’s been a long time since.
Looking back from her days of wisdom and renunciation,
She remembered she was conceived in difficult times
And in a difficult way under a galaxy-filled sky that should have been beautiful.
Stage One
An instar, she thought, in a state of radical change.
Life in liquid suspension.
A slice of life force, possibly halted, possibly hated, but (was) instead permitted life. Cells
fighting to come together, dividing.
Becoming.
More alive with each look, with each emotion, with great possibility.
Stage Two
She discovered herself, letting loose of all control, throwing it out there.
Turning herself over to adventure and discovery.
Not easy in her time.
She may have looked normal from the outside but she wasn’t - normal, she thought, she knew,
on the inside.
Stage Three
She dedicated and contemplated herself and the tumultuous world.
Turning herself over and over for new perspectives.
(At once and again cellular and mobile in a liquid base, internally competing.)
Maturing.
The Wrath she had felt since becoming aware of herself,
That Wrath which she was feeding,
She instead found to be her grace, and in fact, her survival.
Her Exultance!
Turning her thoughts to Kahlil Gibran and his quote that has stood the test of time…
“Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh and
the greatness which does not bow before children.”
poem by Elizabeth Brincklow
Copyright June 2018