Kelly Goff in Uni Arte
Artists Talk by Kelly Goff in Uni Arte
on February 26, 2016
19:00 hrs
Casa Moderna
Madurostraat #60
Curaçao
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Kelly Goff (1980) was born in Curaçao and raised on and off the island. He is a sculptor and Professor of Art at Wheaton College in Massachusetts. Goff received an MFA in Sculpture with Honors (2009) from the Rhode Island School of Design and a BA in Visual Art (2002) from New College of Florida. Recent solo exhibitions include Kelly Goff: Break Down at Bromfield Gallery, Boston, MA. Goff is the recipient of a Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellowship (2015); a full fellowship for the Chulitna Residency, Lake Clark, Alaska (2014); an Andrew W. Mellon Research Award (2013); and full fellowship for residency at the Vermont Studio Center (2008), among others.
Kelly Goff is a sculptor who constructs and rehabilitates objects, especially those that exist amid a world of opposites. Making his recent work Crates at the Chulitna Residency, Lake Clark, Alaska, Goff lived in a wilderness full of majestic beauty and offshore oilrigs. He milled lumber by hand and constructed shipping crates that ultimately traveled back to the East coast of the United States and were exhibited with all the flaws, dents and scuffs from their journey, as well as an interior sound piece titled Passage. As Goff explains, “the notion of repair has permeated my work. Even as my skill set has grown considerably since childhood, I still often enact repairs that are futile, like treating the surface of a downtrodden object while ignoring its structure.” This sentiment is obvious in works like Dumpster which highlights the duality between the trashed outer surface and an enlivened aqua interior that is treated with paint, translucent pigments and mica powder.
