Kenneth Hall

Kenneth Hall

Cedar Falls, IA, United States

About Kenneth Hall

Kenneth has made comparisons between his new paintings and 1980's "MTV," where the drama and pulsing, seductive intensity of those early music videos captivated a generation. The challenge of creating depth, resonance, and visual interest in his paintings has led him into a new sort of figurative abstraction. Quirky figures appropriated from Rembrandt and Tiepolo paintings are shoved into swirling, glowing spaces that reinterpret their original effect. Intense color fields, visceral mark-making and fragmented spaces characterize his work, and have given him an aesthetic foundation for each series of paintings. Kenneth has exhibited work in Hamburg, Germany and nationally in NYC (Parallax and ArtExpo fairs), with additional solo exhibitions in a range of venues, including Amarillo, TX, Edinboro, PA, and Hastings, NE. He has also curated two exhibitions on abstract painting, REVERB and REVERB II at the University of Northern Iowa and Bowling Green State University (respectively) in the past five years as a way of promoting painting to regional and academic audiences. He has enjoyed the writing/dialogue that accompanies abstraction as it requires some explanation to the contemporary viewer and, ultimately, helps to increase appreciation of painting. Recently he was awarded a one-month artist residency at GlogauAIR in Berlin, Germany, where he found inspiration and connection amongst the international artist community there. His newest paintings reveal the influence of that experience.

Education:

MFA 2007, Miami University
BFA 2004, Columbus College of Art and Design
MSCE 1997, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
BSCE 1990, US Coast Guard Academy

Events:

The Other Art Fair, Los Angeles, March 15-18, 2018

Exhibitions:

(Upcoming) The Other Art Fair, Los Angeles, March 2018

ART EXPO 2015, New York City
PARALLAX Art Fair, 2013, New York City

Confluence (Solo exhibition) Upper Iowa University, IA 2016
Synchronicity (Solo), Prairie Lights Cafe, Iowa City, IA 2016
Liminal Spaces (Solo), Edinboro University, Edinboro, PA 2013
Coming Undone (Solo), Process Art House, Amarillo, TX 2012
Black Holes and Revelations (Solo), Grand View University, Des Moines, IA 2012

Fresh Paint Biennial 2015, Manifest Creative Research Gallery, Cincinnati, OH
International Painting Annual 2 (INPA2), Manifest Creative Research Gallery, Cincinnati, OH 2012
27th Tallahassee International, FSU Museum of Art, 2012

CURATED: Reverb II, Recent Abstraction in Painting, Bowling Green State University, 2014
Reverb, Recent Abstraction in Painting, University of Northern Iowa, 2013

Residencies:
GlogauAIR, Berlin, 2016 (one month artist residency)
Vermont Studio Center, 2007