Kelley Walker
1969–

Kelley Walker mines the legacy of appropriation, from the work of Pop artists to that of the Pictures Generation, by utilizing photographs that have appeared in the press, in advertising, and in his own works or those of other artists, to highlight the ways images are transformed through circulation and dissemination. He frequently employs diverse tools and methods to create his works—including scanners, Photoshop, and silkscreen techniques, as well as applications of nontraditional materials such as toothpaste and chocolate.

For Untitled, Walker lifted advertising campaigns for the Volkswagen Beetle produced in the 1950s and 1960s, and then used Rhino, a three-dimensional modeling program, to perforate, torque, twist, fold, and otherwise manipulate the layouts. The technology, as he has explained it, adopts biological nuances: “The forms are generated by cross breeding Photoshop/ Mac with PC; Volkswagen Bug with Rhino program, creating a hybrid language. This generates architecturally 3-D spatial configurations where image becomes skin and the Rhino program becomes the nerves.”

The resulting forms are then silkscreened, using hand pressure, onto painted medium-density fiberboard panels, which he has arranged in a precise configuration. Walker’s reinvention of the found imagery through processes of appropriation, digital manipulation, and manual printing parallels the efforts of the irreverent and transformative American ad campaign itself, which made the Volkswagen Beetle, produced by a German company previously associated with the Nazi Party, into a postwar icon of American cool. According to Walker, “The work encompasses over a hundred years of compressed history.”

Introduction

Kelley Walker (born 1969 Columbus, Georgia) is an American post-conceptual artist who lives and works in New York City. He uses advertising and digital media to make "paintings" using screen printing and/or digital printing technologies. His art appropriates iconic cultural images, altering them to highlight underlying issues of American politics and consumerism. He produces work collaboratively with artist Wade Guyton under the name Guyton\Walker.