Episode 18 - Kelly O'Neill

Art Conversations with Lisa Jayne Irvine

Kelly O’Neill is a sculpture/ installation, multimedia and textile artist who lives in Selwyn, ON. Working with assemblage and text, video and projection, and incorporating traditional textile methods with unconventional materials, Kelly creates objects and experiences that explore the fluidity and impermeability of embodied experience.

Kelly’s works with objects and materials that relate to the materiality of our physical beings. Often beginning from a personal experience, she searches for an image, substance or object that moves beyond the personal to the collective. Kelly creates work that dissolves the border between viewer and object and places the viewer within the experience of the moment. After completing an Honours BA in Philosophy and English Literature at Trent University in Peterborough, ON. Kelly worked as a Social Worker before having a family and staying home to raise her 4 children. Having an art practice throughout her life that often came second to other responsibilities, Kelly returned to school full-time and completed her BFA in Sculpture and Installation at OCAD University, Toronto, ON. (2018)

Community building as creative expression is important to Kelly’s practice and has led to her involvement in the Community Art Project at The Mount Community Center and at Peterborough Regional Health Centre as well as membership in collectives such as Essential Relations and The Cloth Care Collective.

Her work has been shown in galleries in Ontario, Quebec, and British Columbia including J.B. Arid Gallery, Toronto; Pendulum Gallery, Vancouver; WKP Kennedy Gallery, North Bay; Art Mur, Montreal, and The Art Gallery of Peterborough.

On today’s episode Kelly talks about her love of natural materials, being a sculptor, her weekly sewing ritual and her recent exploration of indigo dying.

Find Kelly on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/kellyboneill/

Find me on instagram at https://www.instagram.com/artconversationswithlisajayne/ or at my website at www.lisajayneirvine.com