First Street Gallery is pleased to announce that Recent Paintings, an exhibition of work by Tim Kennedy, will be held at the gallery from March 4–29. There will be an opening reception for the artist on Saturday March 8 from 5–8 p.m. This is Mr. Kennedy's third solo show in New York.

Tim Kennedy's exhibition will include both figure paintings and still life. The figure paintings, set in interior and exterior spaces, come out of the perceptual tradition. The paintings' inhabitants appear singly and in pairs and are wedded to the bungalow settings of neighborhood life in small town America. The works' meanings are intrinsically tied to the material of paint; the paintings are suffused with color, light and gesture. The metaphor the paintings evoke is one of a domestic Eden. In the catalog that accompanies the exhibition, Scott Noel's essay, in referring to the people who occupy these paintings says, "There is an understated psychological subtext implied in their relationships with each other and the painted places they inhabit."

The still life paintings included in the exhibition are from Mr. Kennedy's Cornell box series. Objects in the still life paintings such as shells and dry flowers hold the world in microcosm and are a deliberate homage to the box constructions of Joseph Cornell. In reviewing Tim Kennedy's still life paintings as part of a group show, Mario Naves of The New York Observer wrote that his work had "razor sharp clarity."