San Diego artist, Liz Kennedy, opened a solo show this month with the City of Encinitas Visual Arts Program: “Bodies in Rest and Motion”. The show continues until May 9, 2024, and Encinitas will hold an Art Night on March 9th, from 5:30 - 8:30 p.m. The event celebrates the artists and the art scene at various locations with music and activities and is free to the public. The show is all figurative work made in the last three years. Thirty artworks, mostly oil paintings with some mixed media works, line the hallway of the Encinitas Community Center. The artist works from models, and/or photographs to create her paintings, but the final result is not photographic, but painterly. “Risk and surrender” are some of Liz Kennedy’s watchwords. She is ready to learn, to fail and to try other flavors besides “pretty”— like illogical, corny, imperfect. The shapes and feelings of people, their bodies, their faces always draw her in, as well as the natural world. She is inspired by the attitudes, bravery and work of artists like Maggie Hambling, Frank Auerbach, David Park, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Fairfield Porter and Alice Neel. Her work is unique because of the way personal way she absorbs the world - she respects what she takes in and seeks to honor what she takes in with bravery and attention. The City of Encinitas provides art exhibitions as a service to local artists, providing economic benefit from the sale of art and exposure to a wider audience while beautifying public buildings in Encinitas. The Civic Arts Program, established in 1998, serves artists, arts organizations, and the community through programs in the visual and performing arts, and is overseen by the Cultural Arts Division and Commission for the Arts. Also showing in the same space are artworks from the San Dieguito Art Guild and Misti Washington Gourd and Basket Guild. The show can be seen at the Encinitas Community and Senior Center, 1140 Oakcrest Park Drive, Encinitas, CA, and is open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. weekdays, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturdays and 12 noon to 5 p.m. Sundays. For more information, please contact Liz Kennedy, 206-679-7524 or lizkennedy.444@gmail.com
