Michael Kennaugh
“Telling the Bees”
March 11 - April 22, 2023
Open House: Saturday, March 11, 1-5 pm,
Artist in Attendance 3-5 pm, Artist Talk 4 pm
Moody Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new work by Michael Kennaugh. “Telling the Bees”, on view March 11 - April 22, 2023, marks Kennaugh’s tenth solo exhibition at the gallery since 2002. The exhibition features five large-scale oil paintings on canvas as well as a seven-foot-tall outdoor sculpture made of stainless steel.
Of his paintings, Kennaugh states- “My palette management was influenced by a trip I took to the Isle of Man in July of 1987. I was introduced to John Nicholson, a Manx painter who specialized in making watercolors of the native scenery. His paintings were of harbor scenes and rolling landscapes. Nicholson’s palette displayed a range of grays, warm and cool, that supported a rich layer of color added later. He told me to never clean my palette. This way one could infuse pure color into this soup of grayish tones, already on their palette, and build a color vocabulary that could not be duplicated. I thought about this for a while and realized a conceptual component to this process. Mixtures made this way reflect a period of time, and not a singular approach to the easel. Over several months to maybe a year, this palette can describe a life lived in the most subtle ways.” -Excerpt from an interview with Kinzelman Art Consulting, 2016
Michael Kennaugh (b. Casper, Wyoming, 1964) has spent most of his life in Texas and currently lives and works in Houston, Texas. He received a B.F.A. degree from Lamar University (1986) and a M.F.A. degree in painting from the University of North Texas (1990). He also attended The American College of Switzerland in Leysin (1990) and was awarded an artist residency (1996) at the William Flanagan Memorial Creative Persons Center, Montauk, Long Island. Kennaugh’s work is in the permanent collections of The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Art Museum of Southeast Texas, Beaumont; Houston Airport System, City of Houston; Lamar University, Beaumont; Tyler Museum of Art; and the Mobile Museum of Art, as well as private and corporate collections both national and international. Kennaugh’s work is currently on view at the Dishman Art Museum at Lamar University and will also be included in an upcoming exhibition at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. A solo exhibition of his work was recently held at the Beeville Art Museum (2022).
Moody Gallery is open Tuesday - Friday 10:30 am - 5:00 pm and Saturday 11:00 am - 5:00 pm. For more information, please call or email the gallery at 713-526-9911 or info@moodygallery.com. “Michael Kennaugh - Telling the Bees” can also be viewed online at www.moodygallery.com.