I love the complexity that can be created from pens and the power a single ink stroke can have on a drawing

When local artist Kelly Halpin isn’t out riding or climbing, she’s laying it down in pen and ink. The Jackson denizen’s work is provocative, challenging you to excavate meaning from her masterfully rendered lines and free-flowing style. Though she may hint to the message buried deep within, Kelly isn’t too keen on explaining it. In the true spirit of an artist, she prefers that the seed of thought be planted in her viewer, and allowed to bloom into whatever meaning their minds may harvest. Drenched in splattered ink, her pieces exude the energy she imparted on them during conception. And while demonstrating a certain liberal hand, her lines are placed with the precision of a sculpture’s chisel. Gritty and sometimes morose, her subject matter instills an emotion in the viewer, which in the end, is the message most loudly heard.

Recently, The Mountain Pulse team met up with Kelly at Lines Gallery on Pearl Street to check out her new exhibit.

“I am intrigued by what many people find weird or grotesque, and often try to capture those themes in another light. I find inspiration from a multitude of random subjects including comic books, animations, animal carcasses, ski porn, and graffiti.”

“I love the complexity that can be created from pens and the power a single ink stroke can have on a drawing. For the past seven years I have used that medium to illustrate the raw beauty, humor, and the very strange places and characters that float around my head.”

See Kelly’s work at Lines Gallery on Pearl St. in Jackson or online at her site www.thecoffeeweirds.com