July 19 - August 16, 2024
Tipping Point | Craig Cully and Kelly Leslie
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Artist Statement
Over the course of our 20-year marriage we have attempted, and failed, numerous times to produce a single collaborative work. It took a global pandemic that forced us to remain on our property working in close proximity to one another to realize that, rather than resist our conflicts, we could harness this discord by employing a form of corporate discernment to pursue a unity within the dialectics of idealism and practicality, art and design, marriage and responsibility. This work leans into interpersonal dissonance and suspends any expectations of specific outcomes. Our project is a reflexive look at the evasive phantom we call collaboration/cooperation. Through a series of paintings whose shifting overlays of image fragments produced through and about a conglomeration of collaborative practices, this work conveys varying perceptions that are relevant to all human interpersonal relationships—connections, slippages and misalignments. Having studied and practiced in different disciplines, Kelly, a graphic designer, and Craig, a painter, we seek to discover what comes out of the intersection of our differing perspectives by flirting with the interruption of our individual practices in an attempt to find immanence not transcendence. This work embodies the memory of its own creation rather than an idea of what it means to collaborate. These paintings operate as visual archives of our efforts to collaborate—a portrait of the work of co-creation and a repository of shared experience. These paintings negotiate a reciprocity between facture, reflection and depth as well as the contingent relationship between surface and physical/illusionistic structures allowing forces to fall out of equilibrium only to seek it once again. They are visual aporia consisting of a dialectics of space, color and dimensional tension. They are a paradigm where the balance of relations is always being reassessed and there is a constant sense of fragility and free fall giving the work and us a quivering presence, alive in real time, always ready to collapse. |
InventoryBide
Oil on canvas 48 x 60.5" Rend and Float Oil on canvas 33 x 33" Tumble and Bounce Oil on canvas 55 x 50" Forecast Oil on canvas 63 x 86" Chart Escalation Oil on canvas 60" x 60" Weights and Pulleys Oil on canvas 63 x 86" |
Artists Bio
Both Craig Cully and Kelly Leslie grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia where some of their earliest inspiration came from the area’s long-standing tradition of realist painters. Both graduated with BFA degrees from Temple University’s Tyler School of Art. Cully initially studied design and moved to painting out of frustration of not understanding what he perceived as the “rules of design”. Leslie began studying painting at SVA in New York and moved over to design when she transferred to Tyler finding the parameters of design offered a more focused way of visual expression. But Cully and Leslie did not meet until earning their MFAs from The University of Arizona in the late 90s where Craig focused on painting and Kelly on Visual Communication.
Cully’s work has been featured in gallery and museum exhibitions throughout the United States and in Mexico. His work is part of the permanent collection of The Boise Museum of Art, The Tucson Museum of Art, The University of Arizona Museum of Art, the University of Sciences and Arts of Oklahoma, and the Museum of Art at Texas Tech University. Currently, his work is represented by the Etherton Gallery in Tucson, AZ.
Leslie’s work includes client-based commissions, drawings, and digital fabrication. She has exhibited in China, Japan, and Australia as well as the US. Her design work has earned her awards from the International Publication Graphis.
Being committed to the power of the visual image, and the desire for art and design to be embraced and respected, both Cully and Leslie also teach. He is a Professor of Painting and Drawing at New Mexico State University and she is an Associate Professor of Illustration, Design, and Animation at the University of Arizona.
Both Craig Cully and Kelly Leslie grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia where some of their earliest inspiration came from the area’s long-standing tradition of realist painters. Both graduated with BFA degrees from Temple University’s Tyler School of Art. Cully initially studied design and moved to painting out of frustration of not understanding what he perceived as the “rules of design”. Leslie began studying painting at SVA in New York and moved over to design when she transferred to Tyler finding the parameters of design offered a more focused way of visual expression. But Cully and Leslie did not meet until earning their MFAs from The University of Arizona in the late 90s where Craig focused on painting and Kelly on Visual Communication.
Cully’s work has been featured in gallery and museum exhibitions throughout the United States and in Mexico. His work is part of the permanent collection of The Boise Museum of Art, The Tucson Museum of Art, The University of Arizona Museum of Art, the University of Sciences and Arts of Oklahoma, and the Museum of Art at Texas Tech University. Currently, his work is represented by the Etherton Gallery in Tucson, AZ.
Leslie’s work includes client-based commissions, drawings, and digital fabrication. She has exhibited in China, Japan, and Australia as well as the US. Her design work has earned her awards from the International Publication Graphis.
Being committed to the power of the visual image, and the desire for art and design to be embraced and respected, both Cully and Leslie also teach. He is a Professor of Painting and Drawing at New Mexico State University and she is an Associate Professor of Illustration, Design, and Animation at the University of Arizona.
