KEN MOYLAN March 2004
Ken Moylan, Ponte Vecchio, 2004, mixed media on masonite, 77 x 48 x 1.5 inches	Ken Moylan Exhibition February 27 through March 27, 2004. This is the artist's first solo show with the gallery, and represents over four years of work on paintings inspired by the cities of Venice and Florence. Moylan's works are distinctive for their use of elaborately designed and constructed wooden panels that support and frame his images of romantic Italian cities. His work combines the art of illusion in his use of perspective applied to architectural structures, a door or a window, as a surround, frame and setting for oil painted vistas onto palazzos, bridges and canals. Doorways appear to be made of the stuff of Venice buildings; they have that authentic gray, weathered, rain worn color of the Venetian cityscape. The artist builds his facades of carved masonite, acrylic, gesso, modeling paste, marble dust and dirt. The viewer feels as though he/she can approach a painting and open a window or walk out onto the steps of a palazzo portico. Essentially flat, these paintings fool the eye into believing they are three dimensional. The structures are complex, exacting, and executed with pristine precision.
Windows, doors and shutters are inlaid with utmost care. Using the ancient art of intarsia, inlaying various wood veneers, the artist draws the viewer into a range of color and texture in wood, using such families of wood as walnut, cherry, wenge, rosewood and English brown oak. The juxtaposition of inlaid wood and faux stone with the painting blurs the viewer's perception of what is painted and what is real.	Ken Moylan, Ponte dell Accademia, 2004, mixed media on masonite, 77 x 48 x 1.5 inches
Venice as theme and subject has occupied the artist for over five years. Artists through history who have painted this magical city--Monet, J.M.W. Turner, Thomas Moran and James Abbott McNeill Whistler, have inspired Moylan. It is to Whistler the artist pays homage in his nocturne paintings of Venice. In Nocturne II, Rio Della Pieta, the color of night veils the buildings and canal in a range of grays: brown grays, blue grays, silvery grays, as the moon kindles the warm umber golds of the buildings. The waters of Venice, usually a murky green, are more tranquil, with elongated ripples reflecting the buildings of Venice. Moylan invites us into a moment of enchantment, transporting us through his image to a place of dreams.	Ken Moylan, Ponte di Rialto, 2002, mixed media on masonite, 47 x 78 x 1.5 inches
Ken Moylan, Ca Pesaro, 2001, mixed media on masonite, 71 x 48 x 1.5 inches	His first painting of Florence, among the most recent works in the show, is of that classic spot, the Ponte Vecchio, viewed on a diagonal across the Arno, an unusual view of this city's most famous bridge, captured from the southwest bank of the river. The painting is not simply the bridge, but the city of Florence surrounding it, with structure upon structure, topped by the campanile of the Palazzo Vecchio and an assortment of buildings that line and top the bridge, all cast in a golden glow. Over the years, the buildings proliferated to line this bridge, designed by Taddeo Gaddi, built in 1354 and 1564. When the bridge was built, butchers occupied the shops lining its sides. At the end of the 16th century they were evicted, and goldsmiths have filled these structures ever since that time.
Ken Moylan's work has been shown at The Albrecht Kemper Museum of Art, St. Joseph, Missouri; Flint Institute of Arts, Michigan; The Minneapolis Foundation, Minnesota; Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Minnesota; Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minnesota; Minnesota Museum of Art, St. Paul; Minnetonka Center for the Arts, Wayzata, Minnesota; North Dakota Museum of Art, Grand Forks; Rochester Art Center, Minnesota; Tacoma Art Museum, Washington; and The Tweed Museum of Art, Duluth.
Ken Moylan, Cada Mosto, 2003, mixed media on masonite, 92 x 47 x 1.5 inches	Ken Moylan, Nocturne II Rio della Pieta, 2003, mixed media on masonite, 79 x 43 x 1.5 inches
Ken Moylan, Palazzo Falier Canossa, 2002, mixed media on masonite, 72 x 48 x 1.5 inches	Ken Moylan, Nocturne Rio San Francesco, 2002, mixed media on masonite, 72 x 45 x 1.5 inches
The artist's work is included in the collections of the Albrecht Kemper Museum of Art, St. Joseph, Missouri; Buffalo Bill Historical Museum, Cody, Wyoming; McKnight Foundation, Minneapolis; Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minnesota; the Tweed Museum of Art, Duluth; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and Weisman Art Museum, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.
Ken Moylan, Pescadero Point, 2001, mixed media on masonite, 47 x 48 x 1.5 inches	Ken Moylan, Lago di Como, 2000, mixed media on masonite, 71 x 48 x 1.5 inches
Ken Moylan was born in Eveleth, Minnesota in 1957. He received a B.F.A. from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Minnesota. He was awarded a McKnight Foundation Fellowship.	Ken Moylan, Minnehaha Creek, 2003, mixed media on masonite, 47 x 41 x 1.5 inches
Ken Moylan, Window on the Wilderness, 1999, mixed media on masonite, 36 x 47 x 1.5 inches	Ken Moylan, Little Sioux Indian River, 2001, mixed media on masonite, 44 x 36 x 1.5 inches
Ken Moylan, Yosemite Valley, 2003, mixed media on masonite, 48 x 60 x 1.5 inches	Ken Moylan, Grand Teton, Catherdral Group, 2003, mixed media on masonite, 60 x 36 x 1.5 inches