MAE KENNY | GILFORD, NEW HAMPSHIRE
Art is both an escape from and the expression of the anxieties of the everyday. We as humans are constantly overwhelmed by stimuli from the world around us. I feel it is important to my process to take a step back and let the ideas ruminating in my subconscious and unconscious mind have the space to come forward and be brought to fruition in the physical realm. I choose to explore the depths of our boundless imagination vs. the reality of our daily lives and bridging the gap between both worlds. My creations exist in a place of surrealism as I take recognizable
aspects of reality, mainly the form of faces, and morph them into an altered state of existence through use of light, color, texture, and repetition. I focus on making a multitude of castings and letting my intuition guide their arrangement as if they're pieces of a puzzle that simply fall into place. My body of work, sometimes body-less work, follows a series of material discoveries through the portal of my emergence as an artist.
Mae Kenny is a New England-based artist born and raised in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire and currently residing in Maine. She received a Bachelors of Fine Arts majoring in sculpture. Her work has been exhibited at 49 Oak St, Fort Gorges in the Portland Maine Harbor.
Mae Kenny’s Portal of Self Portrayal, standing 8 x 4 feet, instantly pulls us in—it’s the kind of piece that stops traffic in a room and beckons a closer look. Rows of sculpted faces emerge from a blackness, a textured surface that feels part industrial, part mythical. Up close, more faces reveal themselves, like souls trapped in time—we think it recalls Arya’s Hall of Faces or the depths and layers of entangled faces of Dante’s Inferno. It’s a striking installation for a modern restaurant, boutique hotel, sexy lounge or an eclectic home with edge—something that commands attention and sparks conversation without saying one word.
Portal of Self Portrayal, 4 x 8 feet, mixed media sculpture (wooden frame, spray foam, plaster, acrylic paint, iridescent pigment, adhesive, fasteners). // $4,000
No Man's Sand, variable dimensions, plaster sand cast faces, sand // $875
Guardian of the Fantastic, 7 x 3 x 3 feet, mixed media sculpture, (wire armature, wooden base, fabric draping) // $2,850
Mindless Body, 5 x 3.5 x4 feet, mixed media sculpture (paper mache body, plaster cast hands) // $3,950
