Cheryl Kelley, whose previous exhibition, American Muscle, focused on the American muscle car of the late 60’s and 70’s. These were photo realistic, yet painterly works that featured surface reflections and distorted car body segments in color and black and white oil on canvas.

Her new series, Wheels expands and deepens this auto-based theme into more conceptual arrangements of the muscle car archetype.

Although muscle cars and their reflective surfaces are still central to her compositions, the cars serve more as a stage where the action is about to take place, or is taking place just out of view. There is a sense of remoteness in some of the painting by way of deliberate out of focus compositions or in arrangements of garaged vehicles that sit partially off the picture plane. An additional new element to her work is the inclusion of the female figure in relation to the car. Rather than the female representing the sexy alter ego to the classic American car, Cheryl Kelley paints the preadolescent girl blissfully role-playing the unrealized dreams as driver (aggressive) verses passenger (passive) to heighten the tension and mystery implicit in her work.