In this series of paintings based on old black & white
family photos, Kevin Bean shares his history:
He shares his family and their experiences; he
shares his skill for painting. In the catalog
essay, Jeff Kelley writes: "What Bean sees in
his family photographs is a language of body
postures, self-conscious poses, unconscious gestures
caught in mid-sweep, bodies conforming to the
relaxing curves of patio furniture, or standing
upright and probably saying "cheese."… As a painter,
Bean pares down the naturalism of the photographs
by brushing out faces, letting hues bleed between
figure and ground, and generalizing details into
soft liquid passages. The result is a kind of
emotional semaphore. He also paints an occasional
luminous, colorful spot, something like a snowflake,
falling faintly upon the scene as if from another
season, perhaps from the winter of adulthood
reflecting back upon so many forgotten summers… It
is in this sense that Bean's paintings are less
precise, but more clear, than his family photographs."
The work is fresh, interesting, and inviting; it references a tradition of figurative
painting and then moves beyond. These paintings are literally conversations of
light and color. Perhaps more that this, each one is an eloquently composed dialog
that the viewer is invited to join. Because most of us have the common experience
of family photos and associated memories, we accept - and embrace - Bean's paintings,
and his history, as they become our own.
Kevin Bean’s paintings at first glimpse reminds us of the
San Francisco Figurative painters such as Elmer Bischoff and
David Park who preceded him by several generations. But Bean
has gone beyond them. He has said that he has something else
in mind. What that “something else” is certainly
has to do with his faceless figures that achieve a kind of universality,
in timeless light, each painting a kind of epiphany ...
Lawrence
Ferlinghetti, December 23, 2003
Kevin Bean's Artist Page Kevin Bean - I am a Group
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