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May  4th  -  June  10th,  2006

A collector of discarded and old printed matter, Georgia artist Marcus Kenney assembles everything from dated paint by number sets, magazine clippings, book illustrations, old receipts, stamps, wallpaper etc. to create nostalgic imagery dealing with contemporary issues.  Finding most of his materials in Savannah's dumpsters and back alleys, Kenney is obsessed with the history and value of things we thoughtlessly throw away.  The found materials Kenney uses in his compositions, full of historical residue and relevance, are rearranged into powerful statements about the culture that produces the salvaged waste, his art materials.

Littered with blank expressions and decoupage smiles, emptiness is suggested in titles such as Lost in The Word Pt. 4 and Rise and Fall.  In The First Americans, a character in Native American headdress screams as astronauts claim the land around her in an American flag; a volcano erupts in the background.  Kenney enjoys the mystery and discourse that develops between the viewer and his work.  He refuses to elaborate on the implied narrative in any specific painting, or to make a statement regarding his work, because to him "the work is the statement".  So we are left alone to deal with these salvaged and assembled scraps of paper he describes as paintings, with our own thoughts and speculations on the compelling imagery he innocently presents to his viewers.

Within Kenney's work, there is clear evidence of interest in controversial topics such as economic and racial relations, the dire effects of capitalism, and the rewriting of American history for patriotic effect.  Yet on the surface, he manages to maintain a clever and disinterested position, the beginning of an "unavoidable war", as i the title of one of the works in his forthcoming exhibition.

Marcus Kenney holds an MFA from Savannah College of Art and Design.  His work was included in the Georgia Triennial 2003 and 2002, as well as the exhibition "Georgia Seven" at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Atlanta, GA, 2004, curated by Joey Orr.  Kenney will also have a ten-year survey and solo exhibition scheduled for September at the Telfair Museum of Art in Savannah, Georgia.

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