Born in County Down, Northern Ireland, Kennedy has been a resident in the US
since 2003. Educated in the UK and Ireland with a Bachelor of Arts from the Royal Scottish Academy and an additional two Post Graduate diplomas in choreography and architectural design.
In 2006 he co-founded Surface Library Atelier + Gallery with ceramist Bob Bachler.
Their studios are now located in Long Island City.
Statement
Much of the artist’s early work is rooted in landscape and its various abstractions. Since 2007 he has been exploring the placement of shape and form within those pre-existing frameworks. From this exploration the “Spatial” series originated followed shortly thereafter by “Architectures and Choreographies”.
These paintings address a fascination with essential structures and arrangements, whilst exploring the linguistics of music, mathematics, dance and architecture. Pattern recognition and manipulation are common themes, and involve the resolution of space within his own abstract vocabulary, in essence, solving spatial equations through paint. The layouts are not premeditated, but affected by the colorfields serendipitously formed in the background washes. It is the considered dissection of
these tonal zones that builds the core structure of each work.