Artist Spotlight: Michael Kelly

Who (or what) do you consider your artistic inspiration?

Inspiration comes from the world around me. I walk a lot and take in images of places and the atmosphere of places that settle into my subconscious and blend with memories and paintings I've looked at or studied in museums or books among other things. All this ferments and bubbles away in my head till a time comes when I need to get it down in drawings and canvas either in the studio or in front of the motif itself. This whole process works its way through my sketchbooks which are the prime source of most of my work. This sounds very orderly but is not as I always have a feeling of time running out and the subject disappearing before I'm able to pin it down.


Do you listen to music while you work, and if so, what is most often playing?
If I'm in the studio Ill often have the radio on 2mbs FM, Eastside FM or abc FM playing classical or jazz music in the background. If the music becomes to frantic or there's too much talk I'll turn it off as it becomes a distraction, as i will if I'm trying to paint a difficult passage. When I'm working outside or direct from life I favour complete silence.

Who of your peers do you respect the most?

I lived in Melbourne for seventeen years and in that time had a lot of respect for Rick Amor.We became friends and along with a few others artists went out painting every week for several years. It was a way of connecting with the whole tradition of Melbourne painting as we would often paint from sites that previous generations of artists worked from. Through Rick I met Frank Werther who was part of that old school of painters and had worked with Williams, Boyd and Percival. I learned all sorts of technical things from him that Id never had learned otherwise. He was like an old alchemist in his laboratory working away in the studio under his house in the hills north of Melbourne.

Do you have any habits/rituals or strange superstitions when painting?

I have a lot of bad habits when I'm painting that Id like to dispense of, I try, but generally my only rituals are that I always wash my brushes out after painting, cleaning their ferrules and wrapping the bristles in paper so that they hold their shape. My only superstitions are that I don't like talking about works in progress or paintings I'm planning to do or showing people unfinished work.

When did you decide to become an artist?

The desire to draw and paint has always been there. My mother painted and encouraged me to do so when I was young, but it wasn't until my late 20's that I had the opportunity to go to art school. I'd worked in a variety of different jobs since leaving school and developed a work ethic and took art school very seriously. I was always drawing and built my skills from that.

What is your favourite colour?

I do have favorite colours but find they live or die depending on what other colours they are mixed with or surrounded by.

Do you have a favourite painting or work of art? If so, what is it?

Impossible to pin down one favorite painting. When Ive travelled Ive sketched favorites from museums that occupy the gallery of my mind, among them would be Cezannes ' Blue Vase', Brueghals 'Harvest' in the metropolitan, Rembrandts 'Jewish Bride', Van Goghs paintings from Arles, Giorgiones 'Sunset' in London and Lloyd Rees' drawings and early oils of Sydney, the harbour and its surrounds.