New Gallery | Thom Andriola is proud to present Cheryl Kelley’s “American Dream”, the latest in a continuing series of paintings started in 2004 with her first car show at New Gallery entitled “American Muscle”. Her emphasis on paintings of classic automobiles began with a series of muscle cars manufactured in the 1970s. She first began to explore abstractions of line and color found in the details of car surfaces, resulting in works of this group often magnifying small sections of cars into shiny and lyrical abstract constructs.

As her art continued to develop and gain worldwide attention, the paintings became more and more photorealistic, and branched out into cars from both earlier periods and recent vintage. The brilliant light playing off the surfaces along with passing reflections of trees, people and other elements of the surrounding environment became important ingredients to these deliciously sensuous trompe l’oeil renditions of the Great “American Dream” Machine.

In the past year Cheryl Kelley has had major shows in New York, San Francisco and the home of the great American auto, Detroit. She was recently added to the stable of Bernaducci | Meisel Gallery in New York with a one person show scheduled there in October. Louis Meisel, as the legendary founder of the photorealist movement, discovered and exhibited most of the greatest artists in the medium and is the author of many of the most important books on the subject.

This show at New Gallery is Cheryl Kelly’s seventh exhibition here in her hometown of Houston, Texas.

Thom Andriola
Director
New Gallery