Artist Biography

Esther O’Kelly is a visual artist based in Belfast. Primarily using paint she works in the realm of landscape and abstraction. O’Kelly paintings are energetic and responsive with an intrepid use of colour.

‘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. It is the element of discovery that motivates me to make my work..’

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 over 100 multi-disciplinary practitioners. She is experienced in artist led initiatives such as ‘Host’ 2021, an exhibition exchange between four Dublin-based and four Belfast-based artists which was part of the Belfast International Festival . O’Kelly has been selected by independent curators for group projects such as the ‘Expanded Studios’ project in association with PS² and Nottingham Primary. She was also selected for the Maiden Voyage project an international visual arts and dance collaboration funded by the British Council.

O’Kelly is supported by The Arts Council NI and CCA x Jerwood.

Artists Statement

My work is influenced by the informal approaches of Tony O’Malley and Alfred Wallis who abstracted landscape in a cogent and evocative way. O’Malley’s philosophy on painting emerged from the distinctive school of St Ives that saw landscape as the outcome of long, slow anthropomorphic evolution. ‘My home and its landscape is still in my psyche. I call it inscape - inner revelations of the outer psyche’.

The themes in my work include alternative views of landscape that adapt an uncanny atmosphere focusing on narratives concerning the stray sod and 'seachrán sí' in Irish folklore and the notion of going astray in the landscape. My response is the exploration of the dreamscape and the relationship between landscape and identity as well as personal experiences, perceptions, and narratives. I'm interested in exploring the physical and emotional connection an artist has with paint on canvas, to become lost in the act of painting.

I begin each canvases with layers of colour that are improvised, abstract and chaotic. The application of the paint is important to me, I use domestic work tools such as knives and spatulas to apply paint. I employ different work processes ranging from painting,  drawing, mark making, mono printing and stencilling applied by brushing, glazing and layering, Through a process of addition and subtraction I bring each painting closer to my personal sense of balance, hopefully creating paintings that are energetic, responsive and finely tuned.