Brian Kenny's Multimedia Exhibit Explores Queerness & Identity in U.S

Gay artisit Brian Kenny’s multimedia exhibition, I’mmaterial, features a variety of conceptual and abstract drawings, textiles, and installation pieces created over the last decade. The autobiographical and improvisational works explore queerness, sexuality, and American identity. This exhibition marks TW Fine Art’s summer season of programming and events at the gallery’s Brooklyn outpost, located at 514 Atlantic Ave. Brooklyn, NY 11217. I’mmaterial will be on view through August 7, 2021. But we have a virtual tour below.

The exhibition considers the porous border between a person or object’s physical presence and its intangible essence. The title announces “I’m material” yet examines the critical immateriality that animates the self and gives meaning to objects. Kenny recontextualizes found objects, such as old sports jerseys, American flags, jock straps, medicine bottles, or pages of a book, imbuing them with new significance. For Kenny, what makes art powerful is not the material itself, but the narrative, emotions, and personal connection that it can carry.

"I’mmaterial" features the latest in Kenny’s American Flag series, including a transparent flag and one covered in vantablack paint, creating a void only distinguishable as a flag when viewed up-close. The flags signal the artist’s ambivalence toward his identity as an American; growing up as a gay person on a military base, he is both attracted to and repelled by the symbols and status of American patriotism.

Also included in the show are drawings from Kennye's Secret Heroes series, in which the artist layers rebellious and raunchy illustrations on top of children’s coloring book pages. Using markers, crayons, and stickers, the artist subverts the genre and gives himself complete permission to color literally and figuratively outside the lines. Similarly, in Sacred Profanities, drawings overlay pages from a book showing Michelangelo's art, bringing the work into the present and inserting Kenny’s contrarian presence into the iconic scenes.

This exhibition presents a softer side of Kenny’s art; over time his work has evolved to embrace a more feminine aesthetic, subtler messages, and physically softer materials. I’mmaterial provides a rich cross-section of Kenny’s conceptual artwork, inspiring viewers to reconsider everyday objects as vessels for new and unexpected meaning.

Not a Boy, Not Yet a Woman

About Brian Kenny

Brian Kenny (born 1982, Heidelberg, Germany) is a New York-based multidisciplinary artist whose work has been exhibited throughout the US, Canada, Russia, Israel, and Europe. Using mediums spanning drawing, painting, textile, video, and performance, his experimental and expressionistic artwork often engages themes around queer identity, urban living, and shifting societal perceptions of gender, sexuality, and politics. In addition to his fine art practice, Brian Kenny has completed commissions and collaborations with internationally recognized brands including Onitsuka Tiger (Japan), Christian Lacroix (Paris), The Highline Park (NYC), M3 Hotels (Geneva), and more.

About TW Fine Art

TW Fine Art is a gallery practicing a hybrid of fine art representation and art collection management. TW works to advance artists’ careers, pairing them with the right galleries, artist services, dealers, and collectors on a global scale while also displaying and selling art directly from its Brooklyn, New York and Palm Beach, Florida outposts. Originally founded as Fine Art Acquisitions in 2007, TW Fine Art was established in its current form in 2020 by Mike De Paola and Ty Cooperman.

Location:

TW FINE ART – Brooklyn Outpost
514 Atlantic Ave.
Brooklyn, NY 11217
Hours: 11am – 7 pm, Tues – Sun

TW Fine Art installation, photo Rachel Cabitt

Doom

All I Know Now

Blue Jock

Boys Never Fail 5

Gutsy

Oh Fuck

Red Blue

Black Spikes

The Endless

TW Fine Art installation, photo Rachel Cabitt

More Than Ever

Burglarized

TW Fine Art installation, photo Rachel Cabitt

Breakfast of Champions

Concurrents

TW Fine Art installation, photo Rachel Cabitt

Eleusis

Epitaph

TW Fine Art installation, photo Rachel Cabitt

More Horny than Human

TW Fine Art installation, photo Rachel Cabitt

Boys Never Fail 4

Raw Bar

Skin Walker

TW Fine Art installation, photo Rachel Cabitt

Brian Kenny portrait, photo Rachel Cabitt