Large paintings teeming with symbolism and metaphor are on display this month at Art 10 Gallery.
Bowser-based painter James Kelly is the gallery’s featured artist for February.
He’s showing a series of paintings in yellow and orange, colours he says evoke new life and energy. Images in the work include a pyramid, representing unity and harmony, the phoenix, emblematic of rebirth, and the phrase “glory of God” in Persian script.
Kelly said while it may seem as though his paintings are thought out in advance, that’s not the case. He said sometimes the meaning strikes him months or years later.
“The way I work is I paint paintings and often I don’t understand them so they go through processes where it takes years and they continue to be developed,” Kelly said. “So all of these had their beginning quite a while ago but they have still been painted on recently.”
WHAT’S ON … James Kelly exhibit at Art 10 Gallery, Nanaimo North Town Centre, until the end of February.
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