Independent Arts News Reporting 
Geodesic Dome, 24×30 by Thomas Kelly. Photo Credit: Contributed.
Authenticity and Nostalgia Meets Modern-Day through Virtual Exhibition - New York City
By: Mandee K. Hammerstein
Artsy, a premier art gallery website with millions of views per day will be hosting the virtual exhibition with images and details available in a private viewing room.
Thomas Kelly a widely collected, award-winning, New Jersey based painter with a signature style, his work primarily has its roots in Expressionism. Kelly’s paintings are largely known for colorful, narrative, acrylic paintings on canvas often creating what feels like internal, personal dialogue with the viewer. With more than 350 of Kelly’s original paintings collected, his deceptively simplistic paintings are both critically acclaimed and very approachable by everyday viewers. Kelly has exhibited in New Jersey, New York City, and Philadelphia. His work is in private and public collections in the US, Europe and Asia.
Rocket Slide, 30×30 by Thomas Kelly. Photo Credit: Contributed.
When asked about his inspiration for the virtual exhibition “Schoolyard Forever” with the Walter Wickiser Gallery in Soho, New York, Kelly stated: “Everything I know was learned in the schoolyard. Respect, time management, personal relationship management, physical fitness, discipline, team.”
“I am excited to be working with the Walter Wickiser Gallery. The lineage and quality of the artists that the gallery represents make me feel that I am in terrific company. I am grateful that Walter Wickiser understands my work and what I am trying to convey. We are looking to do great things together.”
Balls on the Roof, 24×18 by Thomas Kelly. Photo Credit: Contributed.
Kelly, fondly remembering growing up a block from his elementary school, used his schoolyard as an extension of his own yard. Playing basketball under the streetlamps far past dark and riding bikes on painted tarmacs, followed by smoking forbidden cigarettes like adults. Kelly proceeded to state about his bygone era: “We were too cool for school but not after hours, and all summer, that was our time. We needed it then as we do now and should have, Schoolyard Forever.”
Last Day of Summer, 24×30 by Thomas Kelly. Photo Credit: Contributed.
With no desire to be the artist with the best technical skill through a realism style that typically wows the masses, Kelly is the first to comment that his paintings are of common scenes, every day occurrences in which people struggle to establish and maintain relationships. It is these universal emotions and situations which most interest the artist. More importantly he proceeds to admit the need to connect well with the way people feel. “I wish to have the viewer say about themselves, when they see my art, “This is about me, this is about my life.” This is how Kelly wishes to connect with the viewer.
About Walter Wickiser Gallery
The Walter Wickiser Gallery was established in 1992 in Soho, New York. Wickiser’s career as an art dealer formally began in 1990 in Soho, NY, when he became the director of the first gallery in the United States showing artists from mainland China. Today the focus has shifted to midrange and Post War international artists.
To have a private viewing experience of Schoolyard Forever, visit Artsy.Net
Above: Artist Thomas Kelly in his New Jersey based Studio with Geodesic Dome, a 24×30 canvas. Photo Credit: Contributed.
