Appetite - Jennifer Wynn O'Kelly

BIO

Delurk Artist, Scenic Designer, Lighting Designer, and Art Director; Texas native, and Winston-Salem devotee Jennifer Wynn O'Kelly has spent her life pursuing performance related design while constantly and compulsively producing intimate scale drawings and large paintings in the spaces of time between film assignments and theater productions. 

CURRENT PROJECTS

PROFILE

Delurk Artist, Scenic Designer, Lighting Designer, and Art Director; Texas native, and Winston-Salem devotee, Jennifer has spent her life pursuing performance related design while constantly and compulsively producing intimate scale drawings and large paintings in the spaces of time between film assignments and theater productions. 

Galleries and professional work

Founding member, Delurk Gallery; winston-Salem, NC — 2012 - present

Operations and Events Committee member, also has served as an artist mentor and Exhibit Committee member. An artist run gallery, the Delurk Collective is dedicated to the exposure and sale of current artists’ work. Located in the heart of the Arts District in downtown Winston-Salem, NC, Delurk has a large flexible gallery space with shows that rotate through on a monthly basis. delurkgallery.com/jokelly for her member profile.

Owner, O’Kelly Design Studios; Winston-Salem, NC— 1996 - Present

Jennifer is the resident designer for Caroline Calouche and Co, Winston-Salem Symphony Pops Series, Greensboro Ballet. okdsmuse.com

Studio Artist; USA - 1990 - present

Recent solo and featured efforts include; Southern Climes at Brooklyn Bell, Anomalous Travels at Ember Gallery, Traveling Attractions at Century Vintage/Patchwerk Playhaus in Charlotte NC, and Air and Water, a reflection of recent time spent reuniting with artist friends in boats, balloons, in gardens and on mountainsides. Works from all of these collections are included in the current selections on view at Kilpatrick Design, Delurk Gallery, The Local in Brooklyn, NY and the Famous Toastery, Winston-Salem.  jenniferokelly.com

She is also developing a series of video shorts the first of which is linked at the top of this page.

Her most recent feature show at Delurk; Knot Portraits; Friction at Work, is a collection of works connected to one another by rope, cord, line, sinew, and cable. There is no way of knowing when or in how many places the idea of holding or joining things with rope first occurred in the development of human technology, but it is certain that knots and the materials they may be tied in are essential to life as we know it and that they harness friction to do their work.

ARTIST STATEMENT

Choice.

It may not be unique to humans, but it is certainly essential to every moment spent in this existence.  Without choice, we would be the puppets of more willful beings; serving rare steak to our dogs; chasing down live mice for our cats; wandering across the tundra gleaning subsistence from the wilderness for mere survival. It is impossible for me to conceive of life without choice. I relish taking an active role in digging into a possibility and exploring the outcome of a “what if ” but as soon as I do, cognition gives way to responsive narration, a mark giving rise to a narrative thought, leading to a gesture, inspiring a breeze blowing through a once still scene.  One of the most difficult and delightful pursuits is rendering the fleeting images that occur between my conscious “in-the-moment” brain and the ongoing imagery that mocks my cognitive thought process, revealing my thoughts closer to their root, even as the meaning or subject matter eludes me, drawing me further into, or out of, my mind; leading to new slices of narrative.

- Jennifer Wynn O'Kelly

WEB: 

Design Studio and Scene Shop

Artist Site

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BLOG: 

tumblr | musing is free

CONTACT: 

artist@jenniferokelly.com