Born 1973 Nottingham
Roger Kelly makes intricate large-scale landscape paintings that originate as line drawings which combine photographic references and invented elements. The drawings are enlarged and then transferred to canvas and painted, resulting in compositions that appear to be digitized, downloaded images that belie their painstakingly handcrafted nature. Roger Kelly’s images of tornadoes ripping through the city or isolated dwellings in remote landscapes, are eerily emotionally detached. Despite having a deliberate “paint-by-numbers” quality, they are dynamic, visually stimulating, compositions. Roger Kelly is one of several young artists in their late 20s or early 30s who are becoming recognized as new and innovative British landscape painters.