{{short description|American post-conceptual artist (born 1969)}} '''Kelley Walker''' (born 1969 Columbus, Georgia) is an American post-conceptual artist who lives and works in New York City. He uses advertising and digital media to make "paintings" using screen printing and/or digital printing technologies.<ref name="auto">http://www.artnet.com/artists/kelley-walker/ Kelley Walker: digital media artist, sculptor and installation artist</ref> His art appropriates iconic cultural images, altering them to highlight underlying issues of American politics and consumerism. He produces work collaboratively with artist Wade Guyton under the name ''Guyton\Walker''.
==Education== Walker graduated with a BFA from the University of Tennessee in 1995, and graduated from The University of Arizona with an MFA in 1998.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.laduenews.com/arts-and-culture/features/kelley-walker-transforms-cam/article_131e43c2-7489-597d-91d0-3f75665abcd0.html|title=Kelley Walker Transforms CAM|last=Hollerbach|first=Bryan A.|date=September 15, 2016|work=Ladue News|access-date=2017-03-03|language=en}}</ref>
==Art work== Walker often presents large-scale billboard-like canvases set at 90 degree angles, sometimes splattered with abstracted patterns in symbolic white color and chocolate, such as in his ''Black Star Press'' from 2006, a digital painting triptych on canvas.<ref name="auto3">http://www.saatchigallery.com/artists/kelley_walker.htm Kelley Walker at SAATCHI GALLERY</ref> Walker’s gestures mimic violence, merging ethical corruption with graffiti and pop art. He also makes sculpture and installation art.<ref name="auto"/>
Since 2005, Walker has been working with bricks, first entirely in silkscreen and later adding collaged printed material.<ref name="auto2">Stephanie Murg (March 9, 2015), [http://www.wallpaper.com/art/kelley-walker-tears-down-convention-brick-by-brick/8558 Kelley Walker tears down convention brick by brick] ''Wallpaper''.</ref> Created between 2013–14, his identically sized, 2.5-meter tall canvases of powdery silkscreened bricks are lined and separated with fragments of pages from the Italian architecture and design magazine ''Domus''.<ref name="auto1">[http://www.paulacoopergallery.com/exhibitions/584 Kelley Walker, March 3 - April 18, 2015] Paula Cooper Gallery, New York.</ref><ref name="auto2"/> In each one of the paintings, Walker begins by scanning individual bricks, which he then arranges into a stacked alignment and silkscreens using a four-color process.<ref name="auto1"/>
==Exhibitions== Walker has been the subject of solo and two-person exhibitions at WIELS in Brussels, Belgium; Le Magasin in Grenoble, France; Modern Art Oxford in Oxford, United Kingdom; and Museum De Hallen, Haarlem in The Netherlands.<ref name="auto3"/> His work was included in the 2005 ''Greater New York'' exhibition at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center in New York and ''USA Today'' at the Royal Academy in London. He participated in the 7th Sharjah Biennial, the 2006 Whitney Biennial, and the 2007 Lyon Biennale.
==Collections== Walker's work has been acquired by the Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, Carnegie Museum of Art, and Sammlung Goetz in Munich.<ref name="auto1"/>
==Gallery representation== Walker is represented by Paula Cooper Gallery,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.paulacoopergallery.com/exhibitions/kelley-walker/press-release|title=Paula Cooper Gallery|website=www.paulacoopergallery.com|access-date=2016-04-06}}</ref> New York; Thomas Dane Gallery, London; Capitain Petzel Gallery, Berlin; Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne; Galleria Massimo De Carlo, Milan; and Galerie Catherine Bastide, Brussels.{{citation needed|date=April 2014}}
==Controversy== On September 17, 2016 Kelley Walker became the center of major controversy after giving an opening artist talk for his show, Direct Drive, at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis. Controversy arose after Walker avoided audience questions regarding his intent in using racial imagery and symbolism. As a consequence there was much backlash against Walker, CAM STL, and head curator Jeffrey Uslip, who resigned two weeks later.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://fox2now.com/news/racially-charged-st-louis-contemporary-art-museum-show-sparks-outrage/|title=Racially charged St. Louis Contemporary Art Museum show sparks outrage|date=September 26, 2016}}</ref><ref>{{cite web| url = http://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/st-louisans-call-boycott-cams-newest-exhibit-direct-drive-depicting-black-bodies#stream/0| title = St. Louisans call for a boycott of CAM's newest exhibit, 'Direct Drive,' depicting black bodies {{!}} STLPR| date = 21 September 2016}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=http://uk.blouinartinfo.com/news/story/1622732/deputy-director-of-st-louiss-contemporary-art-museum-resigns |title=Deputy Director of St. Louis's Contemporary Art Museum Resigns, Artist Bathes in Pig Blood at Pro-Trump Art Show, and More | BLOUIN ARTINFO |access-date=2016-11-12 |archive-date=2016-11-12 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161112145342/http://uk.blouinartinfo.com/news/story/1622732/deputy-director-of-st-louiss-contemporary-art-museum-resigns |url-status=dead }}</ref>
==Footnotes== {{reflist|3}}
==External links== *[https://web.archive.org/web/20120426051647/http://www.wiels.org/event.php?event_id=62 Kelley Walker, WIELS, Brussels, Belgium, 9/6–11/2/2008] *[https://web.archive.org/web/20120424114453/http://www.modernartoxford.org.uk/whats-on/seth-price-kelley-walker-continuous-project/about/ Seth Price/Kelley Walker/Continuous Project, Modern Art Oxford, Oxford, UK, 4/28–7/1/2007] *[http://www.paulacoopergallery.com/artists/KW Kelley Walker, Paula Cooper Gallery]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Walker, Kelley}} Category:American digital artists Category:1969 births Category:Living people Category:People from Columbus, Georgia Category:University of Tennessee alumni Category:20th-century American painters Category:American male painters Category:21st-century American painters Category:American postmodern artists Category:Artists from New York (state) Category:American new media artists Category:20th-century American printmakers Category:Post-conceptual artists Category:American contemporary painters Category:20th-century American male artists