Beautiful and wild, Justin Kellner’s combination of aggressive, abstract brushstrokes with silky veils of color and realistically-rendered birds creates unexpected spaces in each canvas. With a confident use of deep browns, red-oranges, brassy yellows, sky blues and mossy greens, his work begins by simply laying down a few marks in acrylic paint. These marks are then used to guide the placement of thinned washes of paint which stain the canvas in calming, muted tones. On top of this subtle background, paint is built up in certain areas, becoming thick and layered while others are left thinly masked with soft color. At times these areas of dense, caked paint are home to an expertly rendered bird. Loons, nuthatches and gulls emerge from confident brushwork, revealing that the painting is not just about light, color and paint application. The viewer becomes aware that blocks of color allude to untamed landscapes and layered, craggy paint references the weathered surfaces of the natural world.It is in this realization that we find ourselves between Kellner’s two conflicting planes of being. One plane has us questioning what, if anything, is truly real while the other provides tactile, solid evidence that the physical world does absolutely exist.A graduate of Kendall School of Art and Design’s MFA program, Kellner has shown his work throughout Michigan and has been honored with several awards.