Kid Dynamite 1976

Ken Kelly's 'Kid Dynamite' is a painting, probably in oil on canvas, that plunges us into a world of comic book heroism and painterly bravado. I can almost feel Kelly standing at his easel, lost in the sheer physicality of paint, mixing pigments to conjure the hero's muscular form and the gritty landscape. The color palette – dominated by ochre, grays, and ruddy browns – seems to evoke a sense of battle fatigue, or perhaps even a murky other-worldliness. Check out the way he wields that axe – there’s a real sense of action, like he's carving out space for himself in the visual plane, just like he’s cutting through the air. Kelly's clearly got a love for Frank Frazetta; you can feel the brushstrokes of one artist echoing in the work of the other, a dialogue across generations, inspiring different ways of seeing and feeling through paint. Ultimately, painting is a form of exchange, a visual conversation that embraces ambiguity and welcomes multiple interpretations.