About

Dean Kelly

Dean Kelly (b.1977, Galway, Ireland) makes paintings, photographs and poems. In his visual work, representational, layered symbolic images have chronicled changes in Irish society. Often concerned with the ebbing of ephemeral culture, his paintings show a contemporary approach to traditional materials. They lean increasingly towards the expressive. Colour, texture, drawing and various mark-making, are collaged, layered or juxtaposed using various media. Elements such as graphic design, tight representation or painterly expression allude to mythology, history, politics, pop culture or simple images of everyday family life. Kelly’s photography unabashedly records his locality, forms an ongoing resource for his paintings, and occasionally distils through to finished works. Likewise, his poems, often spurring his visual work in helping to focus concepts and imagery, are sometimes also presented in their own right.