Story Lines

Child’s Play by Keith Maddy
11”x11”, hand-cut and pasted vintage printed paper on archival paper, 2016. Courtesy of the artist.

COLLAGE ON VIEW

Keith Maddy: Story Lines

at The Mayor’s Art Gallery in Boston, Massachusetts, USA
18 April-30 May 2023

Keith Maddy writes about the work in “Story Lines”:

As a child, coloring books, filled with characters frozen mid-action on the page, were a retreat for me from the outside world. They offered an inner sanctuary of unfettered imagination where play and adventure, and the joy of coloring and mark making were intertwined. As an artist, I continue to be drawn to this place and am inspired by these vintage materials to delve deeper; extracting and repurposing them to be shared in a new light with new meaning.

Transformation by Keith Maddy
11.625″x16.5″; hand-cut and pasted vintage printed paper on found vintage lithograph, 2019. Courtesy of the artist.

In this process, I explore the concept of collage and its intersections with drawing and painting. Meticulously hand-cut outlines of figures and shapes from vintage children’s books, unaltered in any way, an X-acto knife, scissors and glue are the materials. Work from 2016-2019 concentrated on the aggregate of cut imagery, like the dense construction of a nest. From 2019 to the present, that has frayed apart, opening up and exposing full or near full cutouts and backdrops relaying a stronger narrative, clearer associations, humor, play, movement and story telling.

(text adapted from material provided by the artist)


INFORMATION

The Mayor’s Art Gallery
Boston City Hall, 5th Floor
1 City Hall Square
Boston, Massachusetts 02201 USA
(617) 635-4445

Hours:
Monday-Friday, 9AM-5PM

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