Laura Kelly's process-based practice explores drawing-as-construction and ranges from installation to smaller wall-based pieces. Concerned with expanding the language of drawing, her current work references landscape (both natural and cultural) and employs a range of materials including paper, thread, wire, graphite, watercolour, wood and tape. It has evolved out of a consideration of the interplay between surface, materiality, markmaking and suggested illusion.
Alluding to an ambiguous and dislocated sense of place, the work attempts to contain the landscape which often spills out beyond any effort to frame or corral it. Bounding and territory-making are also often present. In her installations, the viewing process is influenced by the analysis of landscape at two levels of perception - that of form while in motion and detail/texture while static.
On a broader level, her practice is informed by ongoing reference points ranging from landscape theory (including the prospect/refuge line of enquiry); the nature of perception and perceptual processes; perspectival systems; habitat loss; and japanese spatial layering aesthetics. The formal strategies of minimalism, and their use of the space between the floor and ceiling, also play a part.
Solo exhibitions include Edgelands, 126 Gallery, Galway (Arts Council funded project award); Prospect, Limerick City Gallery; Prospect ll, The Drawing Project, Dun Laoghaire; A Point Faraway, Talbot Gallery, Dublin; and she has participated in numerous group shows including Royal Academy(RA) Summer Show, London; RHA Annual Exhibition, Dublin; RUA Annual Exhibition, Belfast; Claremorris Open; Rua Red Winter Open, South Dublin Arts Centre; Expansive Traces, Ormston House, Limerick.
Awards in 2018 include an Artist Award & Residency at the Vermont Studio Center, USA and an Arts Council Travel & Training Award; a Sculpture Award Residency in FireStation Artists' Studios, Dublin; Professional Development Residency at Leitrim Sculpture Centre and an Artist Support Award from Wicklow Arts Office. Past residencies include Banff-Artist-in-Residence,The Banff Centre, Canada (2016); RHA Studio Residency (2014 - 2015) and Hexagon Residency at Cork Printmakers (2014).
Past awards include an Arts Council Travel & Training Award to Canada; the Jim Dinning and Evelyn Main Scholarship for Visual Arts from the Banff Centre, Canada (2016); Wicklow County Council Arts Bursary Award (2015) and Artlinks Bursary(2012). She is a founding member of Outpost Studios, Bray, Co Wicklow (2015). Her work is held in public collections in Ireland including the OPW, Dun Laoghaire/Rathdown Co Council, Wicklow Co Council and Tallaght University Hospital; and in private collections in Ireland and the UK.
