Hidden City Quarterly

Hidden City Quarterly is an online Baltimore Literary Magazine dedicated to showcasing artists, writers and poets working in and around the Maryland area (with some artists residing in neighboring states). In HCQ's latest offering - Volume 2, Issue 4: Summer 2010 - you can find 3 paintings of mine in its ART section.

Click on the following link to go to the HIDDEN CITY QUARTERLY website:
http://www.hcquarterly.com/home.html

Click on my art website to view more paintings from this collection:
http://kennethyee.com/

Thanks for taking the time to stop by and view my art!

Newest Paintings created over the Summer

In between being busy with teaching at Creative Alliance, training for the Baltimore Marathon, and traveling down to the beach in Ocean City and up to New York, I've tried to ride some momentum from last semester and remain active with painting this summer. As I anxiously wait for my last semester at MICA and look forward to getting into my new studio, my living room floor became my work space where I painted the following pieces on wood and panel.

Recent News & Upcoming Art Exhibit

Friday, June 25. 7-10pm BIG SHOW 2010! Art Opening and Party - Creative Alliance at The Patterson 3134 Eastern Avenue, Baltimore MD 21224 This large group show will take up the main gallery show-casing art from Creative Alliance members, "the result is an explosion of styles, media and voices." Link: Creative Alliance at The Patterson, Baltimore


I WAS RECENTLY INTRODUCED to this amazing book by my co-worker Anne, Eco Books by Terry Taylor. It shows various ways to make mini-notepads or sketchbooks with discarded materials as the inventive covers. Along with some creative book-binding techniques, these recycled books are super cool! Perfect for rainy day projects with your kids or art classes. Here's a link: Eco Books on My Morning Chocolate


EARLIER IN JUNE I had the privilege of visiting Elmont Memorial High School where my brother Chris and my good friend Suzanne teach art. I was a guest speaker for their Art Honor Society Induction, with parents and graduating seniors in attendance. It was such a memorable experience, and my presentation of my own art school experience with some friendly advice (much of it borrowed and learned from my past teachers) could not have been possible without the support and mentoring from the following: Bill Schmidt, Dennis Farber, Phyllis Plattner, Linda Bills, John Peacock, George Ciscle, Timothy App, Beth Atkinson, and Ms. Appold. Thanks to everyone.


IF YOU HAVE BRAVO, the TV channel, and love art (and can tolerate reality television), tune in to Work of Art, The Next Great Artist, Bravo's Reality Competition for emerging artists! 14 artists of varying ages and disciplines tackle different projects to challenge their creativity and show off their artistic talent. Only 2 weeks in and I'm already hooked - although I've disagreed with both decisions of the first 2 artists they've eliminated (2 were more deserving in my opinion - but as my teacher once said, "I'm just a big bag of opinions.") Early on, I'm rooting for Abdi and the two MICA alumni (of course) John and Jaclyn.


FINALLY, I JUST RECEIVED NOTICE as to when the Book Release/Art Exhibition/Silent Auction will take place for the upcoming release of Baltimore Counts! A Children's Counting & Art Book published by Holland Brown Books. November 3rd, 2010 at The Meyerhoff in Baltimore - I know it's a long ways off, but mark it in your calendars!

Guest Blogging on MY MORNING CHOCOLATE

For the month of May, I was asked by the food blog, My Morning Chocolate, to write a post about Food and Art every Sunday. My Morning Chocolate is a great read for any foodie, as it covers recipes, books, interesting facts, food adventures, exotic ingredients... pretty much everything to do with food! I was contacted to write 5 posts that marries food with the world of art. My efforts cover topics like: food as art subject, as well as visual arts' influence on food and plating, the use of coffee in art, Food and Art Trivia, and more.

Below are links to each Sunday Post if you'd like to read them or just to browse around My Morning Chocolate.


Sunday Posts in May:

May 2: Introduction to Food and Art

May 9: Use your Coffee to make some Art

May 16: Food and Art Trivia

May 23: Would you like some art with your food?

May 30: I am almost always hungry

Photos from MICA's Commencement Show; Post-Bac Program May 13-17, 2010

Kenneth Yee

Kenneth Yee and Sarah Hasse

Sarah Hasse

Catherine Nelson

Sean Bennett and Spencer Ulm

Spencer Ulm

Lizzie Phelps

Lizzie Phelps

Chaney Trotter

Lauren Forster

Jinhee Kang

Anya Antonovych Metcalf

Stephanie Goldberg

Caitlin Carouge

Zenas Hutchinson

Taeeun Kim, Kenneth Yee, and Sarah Hasse

Art Events at MICA: Thursday, MAY 13 & Sunday, MAY 16

For those who are interested in seeing some art in the next few days, the Maryland Institute College of Art - or MICA - will be hanging its campus-wide commencement show and will kick off the festive-art-filled weekend with an Art Walk on Thursday, May 13th, 5pm-8pm. It costs $25 (includes dinner buffet and wine) and the 3k tour will bring you throughout the various galleries, open spaces and hallways of MICA where art from graduate and undergrad programs will be on display for a limited time.

http://www.mica.edu/News/ArtWalk_2010_Offers_Sneak_Peek_of_Commencement_Exhibition_May_13.html

My paintings, as well as my classmates from the Post-Baccalaureate Program, will be exhibited in the Brown Center on the 4th Floor - 1300 W Mount Royal Ave, Baltimore. I will be up in the exhibition space during the art walk, 5pm-8pm, to meet with viewers and answer questions.

Sunday, May 16th, 1:30pm-5pm will be MICA's campus-wide reception. It will be open to the public and is free to attend. I hope you can make it out to one or both of the events. It should be an entertaining weekend of some good art, food and conversation... and a little exercise too! As always, thank you for your support... hope to see you soon.

Bedroom Paintings

In the preface of Arthur Danto's After the end of art, the philosopher and art critic focuses on the artist David Reed and his two obsessions. The first being Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo, which resulted in Reed inserting one of his paintings into the background of a bedroom scene and looping it in a video installation, and the second with an idea he terms as "bedroom paintings". The expression was used by his mentor, who would describe these works as "paintings that buyers would initially hang in one of the more public spaces of the home, but in time, they would move the painting to their bedroom where they could live with it more intimately."

Reed would go on to say, "My ambition in life is to be a bedroom painter."

I identify with that aspiration. As much as I respect theory and conceptual based art, my intentions were to connect with viewers, intimately and emotionally, through the aesthetics of my work. When I first began painting, fresh out of college, I was giving pieces away to family and friends, only to find out that they were being hung in their bathrooms! I was a "bathroom painter" in my early career. As time went on, I've graduated to people's livingrooms and even generated a few sales - which I hope that buyers would not intend to purchase my work only to display them over toilets and alongside medicine cabinets. Lately I've been working on smaller paintings on panel, as I've been interested in the connections a piece can have with a viewer in tiny intimate spaces, spaces that require someone to get up close to explore its surface and texture.

Who knows, maybe some of my old paintings have actually left the bathroom, worked its way down the hall, and may currently sit on a bedroom wall somewhere... maybe I've already reached my goal.