Fone Call

Kelly Detweiler

This mixed technique painting on paper by Kelly Detweiler was done while he was in graduate school at the University of California, Davis where he studied with California Funk artists Robert Arneson, Roy DeForest and David Gilhooly as well as Wayne Thiebaud and Manuel Neri.

Detweiler has commented: "My work has always had a humorous edge to it. I was always attracted to artists whose work had a narrative humanistic edge and often it was manifested in humor. Clayton Bailey was an early influence, Roy de Forest, Jim Nutt and Peter Saul all had an edge of humor to their work and that was the stuff I was most attracted to. The social commentary has grown over the years with self-awareness and maturity.

Having children has also affected my view on the world and forced me to speak out a little more forcefully in my work. The early work had social commentary, but usually about the interaction between the sexes. Now I often react to bigger more political issues, but they have to be something that comes out in my drawings."