Heaven Passing Through

(the restoration portraits)

These paintings belong to a series in which I am restoring digital photographs by creating an oil painting of the original digital image. The photographs I choose to restore are of personal significance to me, and each represents a treasured moment in time. Restoration of images commonly is a process through which a damaged analogue darkroom photographic print is restored via photographic editing software; my recent work is the inverse. I have an abundance of digital snapshot images taken with my phone that are of poor quality, both due to the low lighting in the environment and the small sensor size of a phone camera causing the shots to be too noisy to print. As these photographs are important to me, I am restoring and improving upon the originals not only by cleaning up the noise, but also by giving myself the freedom to subtract from and alter the colors and shapes in the photos. These images are mainly of family and friends often shot in dark situations with colorful lighting or candle lighting. “Hold on to the moment like it’s Heaven Passing Through” *

*Heaven Passing Through”: lyrics and vocals Evan Felker, The Price of Admission, The Turnpike Troubadours

Reciprocity

(the color negative works)

Reciprocity refers to mutual dependence, action, or influence, and photographically the term indicates the relationship between the intensity and duration of light. In this work, reciprocity exists regarding the interdependence of photographic and painting practices and is informed by color negative film and leftover paint on palettes.

I am intrigued by the appearance of color negatives and have sourced my images for the paintings from my own collection of film. I work in a manner that parallels the processing of color film; I paint the image in monochrome first (the silver in film development) and then layer translucent color glazes (the dyes in color film development), as well as a glaze that is similar in color to the orange mask on color film. The paintings are a tribute to a process that has all but vanished..

The photographic work consists of hand colored and edited inkjet prints of images sourced from photographs of paint (leftover on palettes from my paintings), cell phone photographs, and re-photographed color negatives. The painting and photographic processes in these works are intertwined in process, history, and personal experience.

Biography

Born in Queens, New York, Gloria Kenyon spent her childhood on Long Island and moved to North Texas as a teenager where she continues to reside. She earned both her BFA and MFA from the University of North Texas and has been an artist her entire life and educator most of her adult life, teaching at University of North Texas, Bishop Lynch High School, Tarrant County College, and the Hockaday School. She also held a position as computer animator at Reunion Arena in Dallas for six years. Currently working exclusively in painting and photography, Kenyon also spent time as a performance artist and installation artist earlier in her career. Kenyon’s work has been exhibited at the Dallas Video Festival, the Trammel Crow Center, Alternate Gallery, 500X, Plaza of the Americas, the Dallas Museum of Art, the Fort Worth Community Arts Center, and the Marfa Invitational.