William Kelley is a Sarasota-based painter and global thinker. His imagery explores questions of memory, identity and what the Romans called genius loci — the spirit of a place. He thinks big, and he paints big.
A visit to Kelley’s downtown studio begins with wine and conversation. He’s not big on art theory, but he’s a natural-born storyteller. His tales wander through travel, epiphanies and long-ago sunsets.
His large-scale paintings tell their own stories. They fill his studio walls like vast, open windows. They’re not realistic, but they’re oddly immersive. How does he do it?…