Laura Kelly
2018
Laura Kelly’s process- based practice explores drawing-as-construction and ranges from installation to smaller wall-based pieces. She is concerned with expanding the language of drawing, with particular relation to materials, scale, perception processes and the landscape drawing tradition. It has evolved out of consideration of the space between material presence and suggested illusion and also touches on spatial aesthetics, loss of the natural environment and territorialisation. Referencing landscape (both natural and cultural) and using materials which include paper, thread, wire, graphite and tape, she constructs work that moves between the two-dimensional and three-dimensional. Line plays a prominent role in the work as do dispersed, depicted fragments which combine the abstract and the representational.
Born in Dublin, she now lives in Bray, Co Wicklow. Past solo exhibitions include Edgelands, 126 Gallery, Galway (part of Arts Council funded project award); Prospect, Limerick City Gallery, Co Limerick; Prospect ll, The Drawing Project, Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin; A Point Faraway, Talbot Gallery, Dublin. Upcoming solo exhibitions include Mermaid Arts Centre, Bray in 2019. Goup shows include Royal Academy (RA) Summer Exhibition, London, UK; Royal Ulster Academy (RUA) Show, Ulster Museum, Belfast; RHA Annual Exhibition, RHA, Dublin; DLR Open, Lexicon, Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin; RuaRed Winter Open, South Dublin Arts Centre, Dublin; Expansive Traces, Ormston House, Limerick; COE’13, Claremorris, Co Mayo and Hexagon, Mermaid Arts Centre, Bray, Co Wicklow.
She has received an Artist Award and Residency for 2018 at the Vermont Studio Center, USA. Past residencies include Banff Artist in Residence Winter Intensive, The Banff Centre, Canada (2016); an RHA Studio Residency (2014 – 2015) and Hexagon Project Residency at Cork Printmakers (2014). Awards include an Arts Council Travel and Training Award and the Jim Dinning and Evelyn Main Scholarship for Visual Arts from the Banff Centre (2016); Wicklow County Council Arts Bursary Award (2015) and Artlinks Bursary (2012). She has a BA in Fine Art (Painting) NCAD, Dublin and MA in Visual Arts Practice, IADT, Dun Laoghaire.
Group projects include RAFT and the Tellurometer Project and she is also a founding member of Outpost Studios, Bray, Co Wicklow (2015). Her work is held in public and private collections in Ireland and the UK.
Image Caption: Edgelands 2017
Mixed media drawing installation – tape, paper, newsprint, paint, pins, graphite, wood.