Kelly Marshall is a San Diego-based abstract painter with a rich background in painting, printmaking, and art of the book. Her work is a reflection on her shared experience as an artist and educator. Teaching deepens her understanding of the human condition and painting is her avenue of expression. After almost 20 years of work with children with special needs in the art studio and classroom, she has honed her urgent commitment to thinking about and making art with people who move and think differently. Her artwork juxtaposes these conflicts through beauty and decay of light as well as harmony of colors. Paintings often begin with bold colors and are then layered, scraped, built, and deconstructed through neutrals and additive negative space. Hidden colors and implied shapes contemplate relationships in nature, organic structures, and systems. Kelly works in acrylic paint, found pages, collected bits, and materials sourced from student projects. Her paintings are deliberate, intuitive, and a reflection on her social practice.
