Kevin Arnold

"Blue Totems"  oil on multiple canvases

"Economy Folding Table / model no. H-2232"

"Triple Braced Quad Hinged Beige Metal Hercules Folding Chair"  oil on canvas

"Stay"  oil on multiple canvases

"Annunciation"  oil on canvas

Kevin Arnold's work is a fine a fun combination of objective realism and conceptual installation work. Well some of it anyway. But the thing that all of his work has in common is the use of Trompe L'oeil (french for deceive the eye) technique with a kind of minimalist modern  aesthetic. His subject matter is the invariably the mundane; objects that are utilitarian and normally perceived as uninteresting in and of themselves. He also depicts such mundane images as a tiled wall, the inside of a box lid, or a drywall patch. Most of this is depicted at a 1:1 scale so the the painting visually becomes a stand in for the thing depicted. All of this is of course a way of addressing the very idea and value of realism. His work was recently included in New American Paintings (#100) in which he quotes John Updike: "My only duty was to describe reality as it had come to me - to give the mundane its beautiful due."  People intuitively equate art with beauty. But artists (in fiction, in film, in painting) ask us over and over again, "What is beauty?" For many the answer is everything. It's merely a matter of looking at it all anew.
To see more go to www.notkevinarnold.com