Brad Killam Exhibition

Brad Killam Exhibition

Geary Contemporary

This event has ended.

Geary presents Painting + Sculpture, a solo exhibition of recent small works by Brad Killam. This is Killam’s first exhibition with the gallery.

Killam’s work takes him from an in situ condition and an engagement with representation toward total abstraction. In his move to Wisconsin from Chicago, Killam discovered a sense of solitude in the woods and by Little Wolf River, often beginning a painting en plein air. He then takes the work back into the studio, rarely finishing on location.

For Killam, direct observation creates a connection to the character, mood, and sensibility of a location or subject, and that mood lends itself to the texture of a work over time. Foundational elements provide something tangible to work through, push against, or interrupt with a bold gesture that might move a piece toward resolution. Killam’s paintings arrive at deep spatial perspective with a flat distribution of marks. The weave of the canvas might punctuate areas of homogenous surface texture, giving way to impasto brush strokes.

Killam’s wood assemblage sculptures are usually made alongside the process of another activity, such as demolition or new construction. While his paintings have an implied duration, these works tend to happen with the speed and brevity of drawing, with one or two quick gestures or alterations. In all of Killam’s work, there are hierarchies at play between color and shape, edge and field, flatness and pictorial space, absorption and refraction.

Poor Farm Pilsner will be served during the opening reception. Poor Farm Pilsner was designed by John Riepenhoff for his Beer Endowment project and crafted and bottled by Company Brewing in Milwaukee. The beer’s namesake, The Poor Farm, is a nonprofit art space near Little Wolf, Wisconsin, founded and run by Brad Killam and his wife Michelle Grabner.

Brad Killam’s work has been featured in over 40 solo and two person exhibitions since 1991. In 1999, he co-founded and currently co-directs the artist run space The Suburban. In 2008, he co-founded, and currently co- directs Poor Farm Exhibitions and Press in Little Wolf, Wisconsin. Killam received his MFA degree from the University of Illinois Chicago in 1993. He is an Associate Professor of Art at College of DuPage. Killam lives and works in Wisconsin.

Media

• Painting
• Sculpture

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