Esther O’Kelly is a visual artist based in Belfast. Primarily working in paint, O’Kelly’s painting responds intuitively and spontaneously to the landscape.
‘I paint remembered landscapes, made from personal experience and an active engagement with the idea of place. I am inspired by how we form an understanding of our surroundings and how the lived experience can turn into an abstract expression. I attempt to include all aspects of memory, the impossible alignment of present, past and future.
There is an element of trying to uncover in the making, which has the effect of expanding downwards. I build up layers and dig them back to reveal what lies beneath, a ghost of the painting, a trace of its journey, like the contours and resonances etched within us.’
O’Kelly graduated from The National College of Art and Design with an honours degree in Visual Communications, she is a founding member and former vice chair of Vault Artist Studios; an artist community of 106 multi-disciplinary practitioners. She is best known for her abstract works which are collected internationally.
