NICOLE KELLY
BIOGRAPHY
Nicole Kelly has a Master of Fine Arts from the University of New South Wales (2020) and a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) from the National Art School (2009). She has held solo exhibitions since 2012 in Sydney, Melbourne and Hazelhurst Regional Gallery (2013, 2017 & 2022).
Kelly has been included in group exhibitions in Australia, France and Singapore since 2008. She is the recipient of the Viktoria Marinov Scholarship for female artists (2021), Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship at the Art Gallery of NSW (2009), Gruner Art Prize at the Art Gallery of NSW (2008), Robert Le Gay Breton Drawing Prize at the Art Gallery of NSW (2007), High Commendation, Percival Drawing Prize (2020), the Hurford Harwood Portrait Prize (2018), Royal Art Society of NSW Young Artist Award (2018), Hazelhurst Art on Paper young artist award (2016), 2D award for excellence, Manning Prize (2015) and Hazelhurst Regional Gallery Art on Paper Local Artist Award (2011).
Kelly has been a finalist in the Wynne Prize at the Art Gallery of NSW (2015), The Grace Cossington Smith Art Prize (2022), Portia Geach Memorial Award, S.H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney (2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2105 & 2014), the NSW Parliament Plein Air Prize (2016), Adelaide Perry Prize for Drawing (2016) and the Mosman Art Prize (2015). She has undertaken international residencies including the NG Creative Residency, Eygalières, France (2020 & 2017), AADK, Murcia, Spain (2016) and Cite Internationale Des Arts Artist in Residence Program, Paris, France (2010). Kelly's work is held in public, university and private collections in Australia and internationally.
ARTIST CV
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WORKS
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PAST EXHIBITION
STILL DAYS
14 JUNE TO 1 JULY 2023
The series of new paintings included in the exhibition Still Days reflects on our sensitive and binding relationships with the landscape and tender love of the land.
Motivated by a sensitivity to the passing of time and primed with personal experience, the painting reveals an ongoing attempt to portray reality in a way that liaises not with literal representation but feeling, memory and thought.
The paintings aim to challenge any inclination to see the landscape as fixed, dispersing familiar representations of the landscape within a field of colour, mark and line. Areas of intricately mixed and subtly altered colour are dispersed across the picture plane to create optical tremors and the flux of the landscape. The image is at times composed, and at other times ruptured into parts and fragments, dispersing multiple entry points across the picture plane.
I am interested in exploring a compositional density and a compression of space, in a way that feels all-consuming, yet passive and gentle at the same time. Within the paintings, imagery tips in and out of focus. Abrupt shifts in surface textures interrupt the image, skies press forward in a reversal of atmospheric perspective and areas lift up from their proper pictorial location. Paint is dragged in thin bands across the plane and also buried, thick and congealed under the surface. The works experiment with exposed sections of coloured ground and negative space to throw the overlaid marks into high relief. Deliberately effaced edges alternate with strong line work in the paintings, disturbing a sense of literal and representational logic.
With large figures looming in the foreground of many of these paintings, the paintings mull over human impact as a catalyst of environmental crisis whilst also situating humanity, and our love of the natural world as a bastion of hope. The handling of paint in the figurative elements is slightly at odds with the surroundings, marking our fragile reality.
Nicole Kelly, 2023
NEWS
NICOLE KELLY RECIPIENT OF 2024 EVELYN CHAPMAN ART AWARD
Nicole Kelly is the recipient of the 2024 Evelyn Chapman Art Award. The Evelyn Chapman Art Award, administered by the S. H. Ervin Gallery, is a $50,000 scholarship presented to an Australian painter, male or female under 45. The award, given every two years, is intended to support a young Australian painter by furthering their…
NICOLE KELLY FINALIST IN 2024 CALLEEN ART AWARD AT COWRA REGIONAL ART GALLERY
Nicole Kelly is a finalist in the 2024 Calleen Art Award at Cowra Regional Art Gallery The annual Calleen Art Award was established in 1977 as an acquisitive art prize by Mrs Patricia Fagan OAM to encourage originality, creativity and excellence in the visual arts, and is made possible by the generous support of the…
NICOLE KELLY FINALIST IN 2024 FISHER’S GHOST ART AWARD AT CAMPBELLTOWN ART CENTRE
Nicole Kelly is a finalist in the 2024 Fisher’s Ghost Art Award at Campbelltown Art Centre. The Fisher’s Ghost Art Award is an annual art award and exhibition inviting artists to submit works in a variety of artistic categories and mediums. Now in its 62nd year, there is over $60,000 in prize money to be…
NICOLE KELLY FINALIST IN 2024 GOULBURN ART AWARD
Nicole Kelly is a finalist in the 2024 Goulburn Art Award . The Goulburn Art Award began in 1992 and is held every two years. The Award represents the talent and diversity of artists working within the region. The Gallery encourages submissions from artists at all stages of their careers. The 2024 Goulburn Art Award…
NICOLE KELLY FINALIST IN THE 2024 MUSWELLBROOK ART PRIZE
Nicole Kelly is a finalist in the 2024 Muswellbrook Art Prize with her work ‘Solastalgia’ . Established in 1958, the Muswellbrook Art Prize is one of the most celebrated prizes for painting in regional Australia. Astute adjudication of the Prize over the years has yielded an excellent collection of modern and contemporary Australian paintings, works…
NICOLE KELLY FINALIST IN GRACE COSSINGTON SMITH ART AWARD 2024
Nicole Kelly is a finalist in the Grace Cossington Smith Art Award 2024 . The award is sponsored by Abbotsleigh school and commemorates one of its alumnae, Grace Cossington Smith, who is known as a pioneer of modernist painting in Australia. The Grace Cossington Smith Gallery is a public gallery developing a collection with a…