Wendy Kelly (née Malcolm) was born in Melbourne and her primary and secondary schooling took place in the Port Phillip Bay suburbs of Sandringham and Mentone. Her interest in visual art developed in childhood and was unique within her family. Kelly left school at the end of year eleven, due to her father retiring, and worked in a bank for three years until she married.
In 1972 Kelly returned to school part-time to complete year twelve. Upon her graduation in 1974, she enrolled in a Diploma of Art and Design/Fine Art at the Caulfield Institute of Technology, where Craig Gough, Christopher Pyett, and Gareth Sansom were among the lecturers. She completed this qualification in 1978.
Kelly’s first solo exhibition was held in 1981 at the Hawthorn City Gallery and consisted of a suite of figurative works including paintings and works on paper. These works were of objects and interiors and their main subject was the exploration of the effect of light on colour. Kelly had further solo exhibitions in galleries, including Pinacotheca (1985) and La Trobe University Chisholm College Gallery (1985), as well as participating in many group shows during this period.
In 1987 she travelled to the United States and Europe to experience the art that she had previously only seen in reproduction. Over eight weeks, Kelly visited Los Angeles, Washington and New York, where she explored the major American influences, and then London, Madrid, Holland, and France to see work from the early Modernists to examples of contemporary art.
In 1989 Kelly was awarded an Artist Development Project Grant from the Australia Council Visual Art/Craft Board to live for a period in Coober Pedy in a remote area of South Australia. A number of exhibitions came out of this experience, including a solo exhibition at Greenaway Art Gallery (1992), 'Journey’ at Melbourne Contemporary Art Gallery (1993), and 'Coober Pedy Experience’ at Riddoch Art Gallery (1995). The impact of Coober Pedy drew the arid landscape into her oeuvre, as well as a sense of space and remoteness.
Following the completion of a Graduate Diploma of Arts (Fine Arts) from Monash University in 1994, Kelly experienced a crisis of subject matter in her work. She stopped producing for a period and concentrated instead on personal research and reading. Kelly drew on the experiences that had been catalytic to her development: her encounter with major international collections and her exposure to the arid lands of Australia. She began to produce small paintings and works on paper that were non-figurative. With this shift, the role of light in her work changed from being the principal subject to becoming a tool. Kelly incorporated subtle texture into the two-dimensional surface of her works through the introduction of simple thread that was adhered to the board or canvas in multifarious layers of grids and geometric patterns. She then used this surface as a ground to create new surfaces with paint and glazes.
Kelly developed these small works into major pieces and has continued to exhibit in solo exhibitions across Australia. Exhibitions of her work have been held at Dianne Tanzer Gallery, Melbourne (1997-2007); King Street Galley (2001), Depot II (2008), and Factory 49 (2010) in Sydney; Church Gallery, Perth (2001); and Greenaway Art Gallery, Adelaide (1997).
After completing a bookbinding course with Master Bookbinder George Matoulas in 2002, Kelly began to create artist books – primarily unique state, folio-size bound series of works on paper. Kelly has also used antiquarian book pages in paintings and works on paper, subverting the text to a point of unreadability by tearing it with imbedded thread, sealing the surface, and finishing it with a subtle glaze.
Her work from this period has been shortlisted in many competitions and has been featured in a number of curated and touring shows, including 'Indecorous Abstraction’ at Light Square Gallery in Adelaide and Newcontempories Gallery in Sydney (2002) and 'The Space Between’ at the Victorian College of the Arts Gallery and Bendigo Regional Gallery (2007-08). In addition, Kelly has delivered several Artists Lectures and her work is represented in major collections such as the National Gallery of Victoria and Artbank, as well as in the collections of Monash University, La Trobe University, and the University of Southern Queensland. Her work is further represented in a number of private collections.
Kelly has held residencies at the Gunnery in Woolloomooloo (2000) and at the Church Gallery in Perth (2001). In 2007 she received the Monash University Postgraduate Travel Grant Award and in 2010 she completed her PhD at Monash University which investigates the on-going relevance of non-figurative Art.
- Writers:
- Wendy Kelly
- Date written:
- 2010
- Last updated:
- 2010
