2023 "Let There Be War" essay by Karen Jelenfy
2022 "Kenny Cole’s Savage Menagerie" The Free Press (Vol. 38 No. 41 P. 12) HiLo Art review by Alan Crichton
2021 "Santa's Hands and Uncle Sams" The Free Press (Vol. 37 No. 47 P.1 & 6) review by Ethan Andrews
2018 "Indigestion" Portland Press Herald review by Dan Kany
2017 "Lines of Thought" Portland Press Herald review by Dan Kany
2016 "The Promise of Tomorrow" Republican Journal review by Ethan Andrews
2016 "Like There's No Tomorrow" and "The Promise of Tomorrow" Pen Bay Pilot review by Kay Stephens
2015 "Flood" Seasick Magazine / Hurricane season issue review by
Narciso Philistratus
2014 Artvoices Magazine 7th Annual Winter Basel Issue interview by Ellen Caldwelll
2014 "Parabellum" Portland Press Herald review by Dan Kany
2014 "Parabellum" Art New England review by Carl Little
2014 "Parabellum" Portland Press Herald review by Bob Keyes
2014 "Parabellum" Artscope review by Suzanne Volmer
2013 "Distress" interview by Lisa Agostini
2012 "CMCA Biennial Exhibition" Artscope review by Suzanne Volmer
2012 "As High As Heaven" catalogue essay by Freddy LaFage and
Karen McDonald
2011 "Gold, God, Guns and Girls" catalogue essay by Nicholas Schroeder
2010 "The Hellfire Story" Portland Phoenix review by Nicholas Schroeder
2010 "The Hellfire Story" catalog essay by Al Crichton
1997 "Cole’s work is neither carefree nor innocent" The Waldo Independent hi-lo review by Alan Crichton
1995 “The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions” The Waldo Independent hi-lo art review by Alan Crichton
2022 "Low Energy: Strata Works 1992-2022"
2021 "Jacked" supplemental image catalog to exhibition
2021 "Tumult" Image catalog of new work on Xuan paper
2021 "The 5 Stages of Grief" Handmade chapbook from Staring Problem Press (Out of Print...but contact me if you would like a copy!)
2020 "W.T.H.J.H.?" image catalogue with essay
2013 "Distress" image catalog with interview
2012 "As High As Heaven" image catalogue with essay
2011 "Darfur at Our Doorstep" image catalog
2011 "Gold, God, Guns and Girls" image catalogue with essay
2010 "The Hellfire Story" image catalogue with essay
Fall 2021 Maine Arts Journal: UMVA Quarterly partnering with the statewide initiative Freedom & Captivity. I contributed an essay and images
2019 Interview/blog post with "Gallery Closed" artists, Kenny Cole, Geoff Hargadon, Paula Lalala and Brian Reeves
2016 "The Promise of Tomorrow" Republican Journal review by Ethan Andrews
2015 "Flood" The Chart review by Jeffrey Ackerman
2014 "Monhegan: The Unfailing Muse" review by Britta Konau
2014 "Parabellum" Portland Press Herald review by Dan Kany
2014 "Parabellum" Portland Press Herald review by Bob Keyes with video
2009 Thoughts by "The Owl Who Laughs" Poet Chris Crittenden's blog
Waldo County artists are strutting their stuff
hi-lo art
By Alan Crichton
Painter Kenny Cole’s watercolor and ink series, “The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions”, at Bell the Cat in Belfast conveys a sense of place that is not geographic but geopolitical. He paints one of us, often in the form of a jogger about to be attacked by a cougar, loping through the vast eco- and sociopathic tabloid of our culture, sometimes mired in its moral ambiguity, sometimes knocked silly by its ravenous sensationalism or its heartless partisanship, yet still trying here and there to do the right thing.
Humans are the problem, Cole says, yet somehow we must also be the solution. The difficulty, he says, is that, as hard as we might jog, we’re still probably going to drive as well, so that, just by living in the culture, we almost unavoidably contribute in some way to its detriment.
There would seem to be almost no slack for the jogger in these paintings except for Cole’s highly graphic, deceptively “untutored” and loopy, folk art or cartoon style which brings a raw humor to the world’s aches, but also carries its own bizarre apocalyptic weight and outsider’s insistent nuttiness. But Cole’s no nut; he’s an incisive painter, well aware of his frame of reference as a painter and social commentator. From Daumier to Hogarth, he buzzes up alongside the Rev. Howard Finster and stings us all, right along with contemporary folk icons like O.J., John and Lorena Bobbitt, Michael Griffen and Dr. Gunn, Newt Gingrich and Joe the Camel.
In “Cougar Attack”, Brigham Young intones “This is the Place” from his Conestoga wagon, and, while the jogger mulls over how to protect the salmon, the cougar prepares to strike. Cole’s paintings aren’t easy, and the world is more than a little out of control. If it all seems bleak, Cole says, remember that big soul power comes from heavy blues. Cole’s work will be exhibited through September 8.
August 1995
1995 “The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions” The Waldo Independent hi-lo art review by Alan Crichton
