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Kelley Richardson: Through the eyes of an unbelieverBy WALLACE BAINE03/31/2011It’s the name that gets your attention “Heretics & Heathens: The Kingdom of God through the Eyes of a Unbeliever.”Santa Cruz artist Kelley Richardson will readily tell you that she subscribes to no religious creed or codified belief in an almighty God. But, she said, there are elements of her new installation work that “religious people will love.”Richardson combines photography and found-object art pieces to create a point-of-view show designed to cast an outsider’s eye to religious and spiritual iconography.She was inspired by her travels throughout the American West and Mexico. She began taking pictures of everything from roadside shrines to abandoned churches and religious sites like the colorful Salvation Mountain near the Salton Sea in Southern California, a large, ornate, visually striking temple created from one man’s devotion to God.“I’m not a Christian,” said Richardson. “But at the same time, I am very moved by this man’s amazing monument. It’s the kind of thing that has a powerful spiritual energy, even if you don’t believe.”The new show opens Friday at Chimera Arts, a West Side gallery at Fair and Ingalls, near the new New Leaf Market. Richardson will be the featured artist in April’s First Friday art tour. It will feature 10 large-scale 20x30-inch photos including everything from stark Western landscapes to abandoned prisons.In addition, she’s adding to the show a second element — assemblage piecesmade up of nostalgic items she’s found over the years, many of which come from her own family story. She said she went to clean out her grandmother’s home after her death and found a wide variety of artifacts that worked as potential objects of art.“There was a real question when I looked at this stuff — old dolls, family photographs, a silver baby spoon — whether I was going to covet it as a family heirloom.”She decided to use them in her art, and found much of it fit in her spiritual quest theme from Buddhism to the occult. She also created something called “Platinum God,” an assemblage piece made up of cut-up credit cards.Trained in photography at the San Francisco Art Institute, Richardson has been a staple in the Santa Cruz arts scenes with many solo shows over the course of the last decade. Her aesthetic often embraces and explores alternative, sometimes transgressive culture from the Santa Cruz Tattoo Project to the Santa Cruz Rollergirls.“I really just want to evoke some conversation,” she said, who says of her own spiritual beliefs that humans just aren’t equipped to know what happens after death. “And I’m OK with not knowing.  That’s led me to have a curiosity about it all. I’m always interested in what people believe and why.”

Kelley Richardson: Through the eyes of an unbeliever

By WALLACE BAINE
03/31/2011

It’s the name that gets your attention “Heretics & Heathens: The Kingdom of God through the Eyes of a Unbeliever.”
Santa Cruz artist Kelley Richardson will readily tell you that she subscribes to no religious creed or codified belief in an almighty God. But, she said, there are elements of her new installation work that “religious people will love.”

Richardson combines photography and found-object art pieces to create a point-of-view show designed to cast an outsider’s eye to religious and spiritual iconography.

She was inspired by her travels throughout the American West and Mexico. She began taking pictures of everything from roadside shrines to abandoned churches and religious sites like the colorful Salvation Mountain near the Salton Sea in Southern California, a large, ornate, visually striking temple created from one man’s devotion to God.

“I’m not a Christian,” said Richardson. “But at the same time, I am very moved by this man’s amazing monument. It’s the kind of thing that has a powerful spiritual energy, even if you don’t believe.”

The new show opens Friday at Chimera Arts, a West Side gallery at Fair and Ingalls, near the new New Leaf Market. Richardson will be the featured artist in April’s First Friday art tour. It will feature 10 large-scale 20x30-inch photos including everything from stark Western landscapes to abandoned prisons.

In addition, she’s adding to the show a second element — assemblage pieces

made up of nostalgic items she’s found over the years, many of which come from her own family story. She said she went to clean out her grandmother’s home after her death and found a wide variety of artifacts that worked as potential objects of art.

“There was a real question when I looked at this stuff — old dolls, family photographs, a silver baby spoon — whether I was going to covet it as a family heirloom.”

She decided to use them in her art, and found much of it fit in her spiritual quest theme from Buddhism to the occult. She also created something called “Platinum God,” an assemblage piece made up of cut-up credit cards.

Trained in photography at the San Francisco Art Institute, Richardson has been a staple in the Santa Cruz arts scenes with many solo shows over the course of the last decade. Her aesthetic often embraces and explores alternative, sometimes transgressive culture from the Santa Cruz Tattoo Project to the Santa Cruz Rollergirls.

“I really just want to evoke some conversation,” she said, who says of her own spiritual beliefs that humans just aren’t equipped to know what happens after death. “And I’m OK with not knowing.  That’s led me to have a curiosity about it all. I’m always interested in what people believe and why.”


Apr 3 2011

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