Von Lintel Gallery | Los Angeles
Chuck Kelton
Chuck Kelton Chemistry and Light, 2021
Chuck Kelton Exhibition 2016
Chuck Kelton Exhibition Views 2016
Chuck Kelton Selected Works
Chuck Kelton Berman Curator Tours Video
Chuck Kelton Biography
A photogram is made by exposing photosensitive paper to light; chemograms are made by exposing it to chemicals like developer and fixer. Chuck Kelton makes both chemograms and photograms, and frequently combines the techniques in single images. His velvety, stormy compositions of inky black and mottled bronze, burnt umber flares and soft, swirling shapes conjured in liquid air have a way of resembling landscapes. By folding the paper, Kelton creates a “seam” that operates as a horizon line, enhancing this effect. Meanwhile the organic and self-determined elements of the picture evoke phenomena like cloudfronts, fires, undulating waves and ridge lines -- and in the most recent work, a more primordial planetary narrative.
Kelton’s embrace of hand-embellished applications of gold and iron along with the oxidized silver and chemical array necessitates a process that can take months to enact, counteracting the idea of the instantly appearing photographic image and instead operating on earth time. With richly detailed textures and the appearance of linear shapes and the clean spheres of heavenly bodies, these works have the luminosity of photography with the physical and optical complexity of geological impasto. His process additive, and in his pieces he manages to not so much depict as to embody and enact the forces of landscape.
Kelton's work has been featured in numerous exhibitions and publications and is in the collections of The Getty Museum, The Los Angeles, The Museum of Fine Arts Boston; the Bibliothéque Nationale de France; The Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, International Center of Photography, New York; and New York Public Library among others. Kelton lives and works in Jersey City, NJ.