Loughinisland’s Kevin opens light-based dance exhibition

Loughinisland’s Kevin opens light-based dance exhibition

18 March 2015

A LOUGHINISLAND artist’s unique dance inspired exhibition has opened at the University Art Gallery.

On display until April 2 at the Belfast School of Art, Certain Moments is a neon themed exhibition by local artist Kevin Killen and choreographer and dancer David Ogle.

Within the confines of the gallery David Ogle performed a series of spontaneous and elegant gestural movements, while holding a set of lights.

Kevin then captured these movements using a long-exposure photography.

The resulting images of distorted, staccato beams of light were then translated into a neon installation.

This unique cross disciplinary collaboration project was commissioned for the Ulster Festival of Art and Design 2015.

“I do a lot of work in the community arts, working with people and communities to enhance their area, identity etc., but this work is not my own, it’s a hybrid of my ideas and the community’s ideas,” said Kevin. 

“My gallery practice is purely based on my own curiosities, how I study the world around me.”

Kevin, who was awarded one of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland’s ACES (Artists Career Enhancement Scheme) awards this year, studied at the Surrey Institute of Art and Design University College, where he received his BA Hons, and also in Dallas, Texas, where he undertook an intensive neon technique course. He has exhibited extensively in solo and group exhibitions.

Kevin explained that his work was currently focused on captured movement. Although his current exhibition is dance inspired he also uses more everyday moving objects, such as passing cars.

“I am currently developing these interests through sculpted neon, video animation, photographic drawing and LED lighting,” he said.

“I use the local landscape as the canvas. Traffic is the ink and the camera my drawing tool as I control the freehand long exposure photographing lines of light created by vehicles passing by.”

Explaining why he chooses the intensely bright neon as a medium, Kevin said: “Neon can be loud and insistent, but through careful manipulation neon is capable of producing a subtle poetic light that still radiates, inviting the viewers to peer into previously unseen patterns and glimpse transitory movements.”

In his work with dance, ‘Certain Moments’ aims to capture the fleeting moments initially performed by the dancer.

The series of weightless suspended floating and free-standing neon forms are also intended to be unique works that can exist independently of the original composition.

For more information on Kevin’s work and upcoming exhibitions visit: www.kevinkillen.com