Kelly Moran - cut outs, encyclopedias and various toys

Visual Arts Source

Donna Tennant

Kelly Moran’s show is large and complex in terms of imagery, materials, and construction. The artist’s background is similarly complicated. On her website, Moran describes herself as a printmaker, but she studied painting as an undergraduate and ceramics in graduate school, but discovered a love of printmaking later in her career. The pieces in this show combine inkjet prints and polymer prints with found objects, found papers, resin, and hand-carved wooden frames.

Moran’s work conjures up memories of a happy childhood in the fifties and early sixties. Paper dolls, children in clothing from the period, references to Dale Evans and other celebrities from the era, comic-book characters, pin-up girls with fifties-style hair, and ads that might have been lifted from Life magazine are just a few of the images that appear in the show.

“Dagwood’s Monkey Suit” is a large paper doll of a male figure in formal dress mounted on a background of..