Michael Kelly 'A Retrospective' 2024

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As always, the source of Michael Kelly's work can be found in the sketchbooks he has kept since a student in the 1980's and which are now in the collection of the State Library of NSW.

His earliest works included in this current exhibition, were shown in his first solo show in Melbourne thirty-five years ago, depicting transitory places that no longer exist. They are painted on timber panels that were later assembled into a painting/montage in his studio. The individual boards, like the pages from his sketchbooks, are often random yet are assembled to form a cohesive whole.

By the late 90's Kelly was exploring the Australian landscape and studying new ways of developing his paintings with a stronger emphasis on composition. After returning to Sydney to live in 2004, Michael painted many of the subjects that he was familiar with. Working up compositions and ideas often initially documented in his sketchbooks, or from the life he observed around him.

Some paintings take time to complete. Over time, they are reworked, reassessed and become new compositions, telling a different story. The painting 'The Embrace', worked up in the studio from drawings and watercolours and on location late at night, went through several changes before arriving in its present state.

As with Michael's earlier paintings, the source and inspiration for all his work is the wider world about him. Whether in the urban environment of Sydney and Melbourne, the expansive space of the Australian landscape, the romantic intimacy of Italy and Spain, Michael's keen interest and observations, always initially documented in his sketchbooks and filtered through the lens of art history, gives us these paintings that are extraordinary.

His life experiences produce artworks that exist in their own totality.

- Frances Keevil

To be opened by Mathilde De Hauteclocque, Senior Librarian, Collection Acquisition & Curation, State Library of New South Wales, on Saturday 10th August, 4 - 6pm. Studio W, 6 Bourke St, Woolloomooloo.