Greyfriars Municipal Gallery, October 19th 2017 @ 6pm
Best known for her paintings of river and flooded landscapes based on the themes of the passage of time and the transient, fragile nature of the physical world, Bernadette Kiely’s references include landscape and environmental photography, contemporary and historical painting, geographical and historical landscape drawings, maps, weather imagery and topographical and archaeological drawing.
She also references memory as related to the landscapes of her family history. ‘I never think of the future, it comes soon enough’ is a known quote from Albert Einstein. Kiely uses it metaphorically in relation to her work based on land and water in the present time. She poses the quote as a question and invites us, through her artwork, to contemplate the value, or not, of thinking about the future in relation to the landscape of the contemporary world.
Bernadette Kiely grew up in Carrick on Suir, County Tipperary and graduated from the College of Art and Design, Waterford I.T. with a first class honours in Graphic Design Communications. She studied drawing at the Slade School of Fine Art, University of London, UK and is a self taught painter.
Elected to the membership of Aosdana in 2007 she has exhibited her work in both individual and group exhibitions nationally and internationally.
Recent exhibitions include ‘Open Studio (where is the picture of the future ?)’ during Kilkenny Arts Festival 2017; ‘The Colour of Distance’, Claremorris Gallery, Co. Mayo (June-July 2017); ‘187th Annual exhibition’, RHA Gallery, Dublin (invited artist) (May-Aug 2017); ‘Memory needs a landscape’, Taylor Galleries, Dublin (May-June 2017); ‘A Second World – any given day’ Solstice Arts Centre, Navan, Co. Meath (curated by Belinda Quirke and Sabina MacMahon), (Nov 2016-Jan 2017).
She was awarded a studio residency at the Royal Hibernian Academy Schools in 2015 and has also been on residency at the Ballinglen Arts Foundation, Co. Mayo, The Tyrone Guthrie Centre, Co. Monaghan and Cill Rialaig Artists retreat Centre, Co. Kerry.
Her work is held in public and private collections in Ireland, UK, Europe, Korea and the USA.
She lives and works in Thomastown, County Kilkenny and is represented in Ireland by Taylor Galleries, Dublin.
www.taylorgalleries.ie