I live just up the street from this brewery, and yesterday on the way home I decided to take a short detour and check what may be currently showing at the brewery’s beautiful gallery space. And I was glad I did as I ran into the beautiful exhibit of Kelman’s dozen or so portraits.

The group of paintings collectively projects a sense of simple enjoyment of life, a communality of the subjects ‘happiness’, regular town people, us, appreciating each other’s company while living their own trip. Self-satisfied and every-day relaxed, either smiling back at the ‘camera’ or caught in the act of celebrating their company. The artist is kind of a photographer recording for posterity a day at a beach community of beautiful ‘brown’ folks.

Kelman works with a simple color palette in a flat color modernist style and the format is unpretentious and sort of reminded me of the work of Stanley Coll but with sans the ‘primitivist’ slant. The unity of theme, color and of format also adds to that feeling of camaraderie of the installation.

And on that point: I get from the images, the subjects and some Spanish titles, this is a Caribbean ‘location’. I am thinking of the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, or Colombia?

I will be on the lookout for any future show of this Gainesville artist.

Helen Kelman at the Cypress and Grove Brewery Gallery, Gainesville, Florida.