Kele McComsey strives to create a semblance of order from the surrounding chaos by deriving meaning through the revelation of what otherwise might go unseen. His work, which often melds various Mixed Media, draws on such diverse influences as William Christenberry, Christopher Wool, Martin Puryear, and Charles Burchfield. He also mines concepts like chaos, number and string theories, not in a rigorous mathematical sense but rather for the abstract beauty the artist is able to channel from them. Process is a crucial and underlying component of his work. For McComsey, the laboring through of how a piece is made is often more important than what the work might be comprised of, which leads to a multifarious practice that spans disciplines. Most recently, he has approached more classic media—like Pen and Ink, oil paints, encaustic, and etching processes—with a contemporary eye, rendering them anew in surprising ways. As a photographer with a cultivated interest in the three-dimensional—he has spent a lifetime making and building by hand. McComsey is attracted to forms that he comes across, usually by chance, in his daily life. His ability to extract them from their surroundings and deploy their shapes in a way that imparts them with new meanings is a process that is by turns sometimes political, sometimes environmental, and sometimes spiritual. Born into a family of artists and photographers, Kele McComsey (b. 1969) was raised in Lancaster, Pennsylvania where he grew up in and out of his parents’ small printing business and darkroom. He earned his BA in Visual Arts/Photography at Pennsylvania State University, and his work has been included in numerous exhibitions, including at Mana Contemporary, Jersey City; L Space, New York; Praise Shadows, New York (870 Park Ave); 55 Mercer Gallery, New York; Delta Axis Art Center, Memphis; and School House Art Center, Provincetown, Massachusetts. The Artist lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Kele McComsey is also an accomplished exhibit designer / fabricator and has curated several exhibitions that gained critical acclaim and addressed topics like climate change and immigration. The exhibitions included artists such Joe Minter, Vincent Valdez, Hugo Crosthwaite, Zaria Foreman, James Prosek and Dawn Clements. Mound SeriesKele McComseyHistorically, the mound may be one of man’s earliest architectural devices. They were fashioned in several forms from the simplest elevated hill to spiraling shapes of celestial deities. They are not simple landmarks but are part of a visual demarcation; sites for burials, rituals, tracing the seasons, and marking the passage of time.There is no direct modern equivalent to these ancient manmade mounds. Over the course of time Humans have gradually lost their spiritual connection to nature and thus these earth- bound reliquaries have given way to the seemingly more complex modern artifices that often lack intention. The purpose is mostly lost within indiscriminate symbols and decorative embellishments that are meant to indulge an already overstimulated populus.The closest correlation to these ancient architectural sites is our manmade landfills – large mounds that are concealed across the countryside. Instead of containing the remains of warriors and important relics they are stuffed with the detritus of civilization that are meant to be hidden away. They mark time only by the expiration dates on faded cereal boxes, discontinued detergent bottles and disposable razorblade designs. The ancient mounds were sealed to protect the contents so they could forever interact with the living and present world - Our modern mounds are sealed and “concealed” to prevent the poisonous contents from leaking or leeching into our present world. There are no entrances to bring in light, track time, or convene with the spiritual realm - Instead exhaust pipes dot the mounds to exhaust the stench of our past discrepancies rising into the atmosphere like demon spirits set free from there cavernous lairs. These are our effigies to consumption.The mounds presented in the series by Kele McComsey are intricate conceptual portraits of the subconscious. The representation of the feedback loop of memory, emotion, and persistent desire for stimulus and consumption. The mounds are fluid forms with the implication of life, rudimentary movement, and respiration. The patchwork of lines and meandering swirls are reminiscent of both intestinal coils and cerebral matter. The linkage of digestive processes and thought directly intertwined and coiled like a snake ingesting its own tail– All ancillary functions removed to ensure that nothing inhibits the consumptive system.The Mounds sole purpose for existence is for absorption. There are no productive outcomes - all desperation is suppressed within their intricately woven labyrinths that somehow paradoxically manage to emit an image of beauty and form – all struggle does.