Kathleen Lolley’s formidable years were split between the gray suburbs of Pittsburgh, PA and the backward woods of Louisville, KY. As a child, she sketched on any media she could find whether it was a restaurant placemat or a piece of wood from the farm.
An Art Magician – Sarah Lolley
Kathleen Lolley’s formidable years were split between the gray suburbs of Pittsburgh, PA and the backward woods of Louisville, KY. As a child, she sketched on any media she could find whether it was a restaurant placemat or a piece of wood from the farm. Her imagination knew no limits. As a heart surgeon’s daughter she also learned that there were other forces at work in each living thing.
Her unique characters embody the influence of her motley friends and family, a harmonious contradiction of characters that magically meet in the painting’s setting. On canvas, her characters and textured storytelling fuse her inner world with her outer world. Inuit folk tales, ghost stories and surrealism contribute to her layered sources of inspiration.
While achieving a BFA in Film and Experimental Animation from California Institute of the Arts, Lolley procured her love of story telling through animated sequential art. During her six years living in Los Angeles, she experimented with handcrafted stop motion puppets. It is not an accident that her paintings appear to be snapshots of playful, complex stories. Each painting reveals a certain mystery as to what occurrences have taken place and what happens next.
In the past six years, she has participated in numerous gallery showings. Along the way, Lolley’s artistic depth and skill as an abstract storyteller has sharpened. To experience one of her shows is to be exposed to a plethora of different art mediums; paintings, wooden toys, night-lights and collages. She uses the materials found in her day-to-day life, such as old book pages, pieces of wood and random found objects. Often her animation shorts can be seen flickering on a television amongst the paintings and objects. She has encapsulated characters and scenes from what can be called her own version of urban lore.
Each painting reflects her rich views on the world by adding adventure and magic to the doldrums of everyday existence. Rabbits flee from their hunters, girls are lost in the woods, giant elks stumble over towns clasping bottles, within each frame there is a profound emotion that might only be recognized as a
dream. Is the bottle a remedy or is just a beer?
Lolley has a rich imagination and an animated family life, through these blessings she strives to illustrate the universal connection through her personal depictions. Hearts, bottles and furry critters are reoccurring symbols in her work. Not everything, however, is playful and colorful in her world of paint and parchment. Tears flow freely from the eyes of wolves and owls perform painful surgeries on one another. The pursuer or antagonist is usually out of sight, which leads the viewer to wonder if her gentle creatures are being hunted or running from loneliness and rejection.
Her work has received international recognition by appearing in Elle and Japanese Vogue. Through the patronage of Kaviar and Kind, an exclusive gallery of handcrafted jewelry and art located in West Hollywood, her work has attracted a prominent level of popularity. As of late her work can be seen on the latest album cover of My Morning Jacket, a band from Louisville that has received recent notoriety.
Lolley’s unique ability to weave a visual dialogue within a textured frame sets her apart from other artists that have also been inspired by film and illustration. Her characters are animalistic, almost barbaric, but appear to have human qualities. Patrons that believe in a spiritual connection between nature and humankind often find themselves drawn in her work.
"I love it when other people come up with their own stories about the characters in my paintings. I know my work is successful when it stimulates a viewer’s imagination and they have fun while doing it," she explains. Her work teeters on the innocent world of fairytales and the some times harsh realities of life.
Similarly, she uses the image of aortic valves over the use of a simple heart. Ghosts and spirits rise out of bottles symbolizing the contradiction of the medicinal value of getting drunk to heal wounds. Vast cityscapes become the playground of woodland creatures. Young girls dance with wild creatures taming a desire to be free, but at times end up maiming something in the process.
Her work connects the simplicities of storybook legends with some of the universal struggles of life. Just as she has done since she was a little girl, Lolley manages to see a world beyond her eyes, an almost magical, but broken world of beauty and beasts.
This month she has her paintings and drawings hung in a two person show at Harmony Gallery in Los Angeles, CA. Her future projects include a gallery show in March at Cinderblock Gallery in Louisville, KY, a gallery show with her peer Kurt Halsey, in August at Young Blood Gallery in Atlanta, GA and between those projects, she will be creating and assembling handmade books.
