artist Mike Kelly

“I’m after the emotion in the moment,” says Warsaw painter Mike Kelly. “Nature’s the inspiration, that’s the starting point for me.”

Kelly’s art, which is currently featured at the Castle Gallery in Fort Wayne this month, is contemporary impressionism. He paints simple landscapes, but plays with color for emotional effect. “I’m after the emotion in the moment,” Kelly says.

It might be a serene scene on the river, painted with dark blue, yellow and pink pastels, or a barn in front of a treeline, rendered in varying shades of blue, but all are as emotive as they are nice to look at.

“Color is for the viewer to enjoy, but color must go beyond taste to be effective,” he says. “It must have an emotional edge.”

After graduating from the Herron School of Art and Design in the 1960s, Kelly cut his creative teeth working for high-level design firms in Chicago. “I’m an art and design junkie,” he says.

Eventually, Kelly grew tired of the design game. “I didn’t really realize it til I hit 50: ‘I’ve lost the passion, and I’m all about the business.’ How do I get that back?” Kelly recalls. “And I thought, ‘When I grow up, I’m going to be a painter.'”

So Kelly did just that. He left Chicago and moved to Warsaw, eventually setting up shop at Signature Studio in Winona Lake, where he’s been cranking out his Colourist landscapes ever since.

“Every one in the arts is influenced by what’s happened in the past,” he says. “I’m very influenced by Wolf Khan.”

Mike Kelly’s “Cool Greenscape”

Take a look at Khan’s “Purple Woods,” “Neglected Barn” or “Lemon Squeeze” and you’ll see a lot of similarities between the German-born artist and Kelly. Both have a proclivity for simple designs with abstract color schemes.

“I don’t look at another artists work without larsony in my heart,” Kelly says, cracking a wry smile. He is also inspired by Mark Rothko, whose abstract, multiform paintings were considered a revelation in the mid 20th Century, and Sean Scully. “They’re who I consider to be the great Colourists,” Kelly says.

Not long after listing his influences, Kelly recalls a quote from author Chuck Close: “Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us show up and get to work.” And that’s what Kelly’s been doing.

He says he paints about eight hours a day, and he’s beginning to branch out into some other styles. Kelly says he wants to explore the abstract a little more, though he says he’s not going pure abstract just yet.

“It’s an aesthetic challenge,” Kelly says of abstract art. “It’ll still be Mike Kelly, and there’ll still be color.”

Regardless of the style, Kelly’s works will always be emotional and full of passion. “There has to be passion,” he says. “Or you might as well go wash dishes.”

Kelly’s work is on display this month at the Castle Gallery in Fort Wayne until the end of July, and at the Swope Art Museum in Terra Haute until August 23. His paintings can also be seen at www.mikekellystudio.com.