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Denis Kelly’s paintings are an interrogation of the visual, exploring aspects of spatial ambiguity and perception through colour, form, space and movement in a playful response to the built environment and the wider designed world.

The painting language relates historically to modernism and in particular to hard-edge painting. Initially, the work is realised through a formal system of line, field and grid which is then contradicted – line presents as space, figure becomes ground, order is perceived less orderly and flat fields animate.

Kelly takes the elements that are in the world and plays with them, his focus is on geometric forms, delight in space, seeing beauty in an angle, a line, a rectangle and placing it in a field of colour, throwing a shadow, playing with a sea of blue, allowing a story by a yellow pool, shifting a tension, hearing an echo as in a response to architectural space.

Supported by Kildare County Council Arts Service

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A collaborative exhibition of paintings and poetry by twin siblings, Denis Kelly and Mary Pooley. Award winning author and editor of The Haibun Journal, Sean O Connor, will launch the exhibition at 7pm on Thursday the 30 January 2025.

This is an exhibition inspired by the Brigid 1500 celebrations. It is also an homage to the memory of the artists’ mother, Bridget. The exhibition consists of seven paintings inspired by the St Brigid’s cross motif, where these paintings play with perceptions of reality, while complimenting and responding to the poetry on display.

There are also seven pieces of writing, inspired by the folk tales and stories associated with the life of St Brigid, with emphasis on her connection to the natural world, her love for all things created and her faith in God. The expectation is that the pieces on display will inspire the viewer to look deeper, past the obvious, into the eye of the bridge where everything cannot be taken at face value.

Originally from Borrisokane, Co. Tipperary, Denis Kelly is an artist now living in Co. Kildare. He holds an MFA in painting from the National College of Art and Design, Dublin and a BA Honours Degree from the Institute of Art, Design and Technology Dún Laoghaire. Previously, he worked for a number of years as a graphic designer in Dublin, taking up painting in 2007. He is currently a member of Visual Arts Ireland.

Mary Pooley is a writer, living in Killaloe. She has been writing for many years, beginning with an interest in poetry and expanding into short fiction. She was first published as a teenager in the Nenagh Guardian, following winning first prize at The Lough Gur poetry festival and has been published in various publications since. She was awarded first prize in Ireland’s Own short story competition in 2020 and is currently a member of the ‘Rosetta’ writing group in Nenagh, Co. Tipperary.

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A collaborative exhibition of paintings and poetry by twin siblings
Denis Kelly and Mary Pooley.

This is an exhibition inspired by the St. Brigid 1500 celebrations. It is also a homage to the memory of their mother Bridget. The exhibition consists of seven paintings inspired by the St. Brigid’s cross motif, where these paintings play with perceptions of reality, while complimenting and responding to the poetry on display.

There are also seven pieces of writing, inspired by the folk tales and stories associated with the life of St. Brigid, with emphasis on her connection to the natural
world, her love for all things created and her faith in God. The expectation is that the pieces on display will inspire the viewer to look deeper, past the obvious, into the eye of the bridge where everything cannot be taken at face value.

About the Artists

Denis Kelly is an artist living in Co. Kildare who makes abstract paintings characterised by hard edge colour motifs, predominantly painted flat on wooden, canvas and paper surfaces. He has exhibited at the RHA Dublin, RUA Belfast, Lexicon Dún Laoghaire, Riverbank Newbridge, Galerie Weber & Weber Turin and most recently at Flowers Gallery London (2022) in an exhibition curated by Sean Scully.

He has been awarded Kildare County Council Arts Act Grant in 2013, 2014, 2017–2022, the KCC Emerging Visual Artist Bursary Award 2015 and the Arts Council of Ireland Agility Award 2021 and 2022. His paintings are part of the Office of Public Works and Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County collections and private collections in Ireland, UK, Germany and USA. He is a current member of Visual Arts Ireland.

Mary Pooley is a writer, living in Killaloe. She has been writing for many years, beginning with an interest in poetry and expanding into short fiction. She was first published as a teenager following winning first prize at The Lough Gur poetry festival and has been published in various publications since, including, more
recently, an Anthology of New Tipperary Writing ‘Vessel of Voices’ (2020), several Ireland’s own Anthologies (2020, 2021, and 2022) and magazines (winning first prize in an Ireland’s Own short story competition in 2020). Mary has also had poetry published in an Anthology of Tipperary Writers ‘Around Each Bend’ (2021). And has also taken part in Poetry Ireland Day readings on local radio. She is a member of the ‘Rosetta’ writing group in Nenagh, Co. Tipperary.

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Flowers Gallery is delighted to announce a group exhibition curated by Sean Scully.

Hidden UK, Hidden Ireland takes place across the Kingsland Road gallery this summer, featuring the works of more than twenty artists. In this selection of works, Scully reflects on an “entire society of devoted, dedicated, faith based painters, who work quietly in studios large and small, in towns and villages all over the UK and Ireland.”He says, “For the most part, they make something with their hands, that is material based, coaxing an image with a body, into being – working, not so differently from other painters throughout history. I haven’t actually curated an exhibition, I’ve chosen work and people who interest me, and put them together, with myself included… I wanted to bring what I could of this work together, and shine a light on it.”

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Denis Kelly Look, then Look Again Solo Exhibition 14 Jun 2021 – 11 Jul 2021 RHA Ashford Gallery

‘There is an observable bias in our perception for simple configurations, straight lines, circles and other simple orders and we will tend to see such regularities rather than random shapes in our encounter with the chaotic world outside.’  –  E.H. Gombrich, The Sense of Order.

For this series of new works, Kelly borrows from a previously made painting which referenced the design of a Georgian period Adams fanlight and examines the nature of the concave form and how it may suggest the illusion of space. The paintings relate to aspects of the real world, but do so indirectly. Through his pared down painting process, the forms become more detached and less associated with the reality outside. They become something within themselves, something outside of representation. The painting language that Kelly uses relates historically to modernism and in particular to geometric and minimalist painting. This is a language of simplified form that has penetrated our contemporary world of signs, design, architecture and communications.

The paintings are made on found wood or canvas. The found wood contains marks and abrasions that act as a counter to the hard edge painting, offering a natural or poetic characteristic – a figurative element in a field of geometry. Kelly considers these works as an investigation of figure/ground relationships and how the illusion of space can be created on a two-dimensional surface. He sees the challenge as how to create a structure that can hold the elements within the painting in balance, equilibrium and unity. Here, each work is enclosed and framed by a series of concave arcs. The concave nature of the frame suggests a pushing movement inwards as if to fill the space. When the pointed corners are fixed upon, the central shape pushes outwards becoming figure and the frame becomes ground. The oscillation is often interrupted by the addition of a line or field of colour, in order to confirm or contradict the illusionism. Oil or acrylic is mostly used and often bleeds beneath the masking where it is allowed to remain or is re-painted. The paint is applied flatly and thinly in layers where markings or the texture of the support can show through. Colour choices are intuitive and are always relational.

According to Ulric Neisser in Cognition and Reality, ‘what is seen depends on how the observer allocates his attention; i.e.  on the anticipations he develops and the perceptual observations he carries out’. These paintings are an interrogation of the visual, exploring aspects of spatial ambiguity and how we perceive.

Look, then look again.

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VAI Newsheet Article ‘Focus Kildare’ – VAI Newsheet Article by Denis Kelly

I am a painter based in Leixlip, County Kildare. I work from a garden studio at the back of my house. It is a small space, but it suits me fine. I am lucky, as it has been ideal during lockdown. Many artists have been unable to access their usual workspaces, while I have been able to continue close to normal, despite exhibition opportunities being postponed or cancelled. In these challenging times, an online presence becomes more important for artists, in order to make work visible and to build audiences. For artists living in the region, solid support and encouragement has always been provided by Kildare County Council Arts Service.

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It is impossible to predict what the observer may feel or how they might respond, however, my hope is that the paintings might connect somehow through their simplicity of form and minimal construction or through their playful idiosyncratic nature.

Text for this Exhibition by Valeria Cerigini Curator/Art Historian

Painting for Denis Kelly is rigour of thought and action. Each element of his art is meditated with rationality and a meticulous description of forms following Kazimir Malevič’s Suprematist criteria, whose purpose was to find a path leading to the essence of art: geometrical abstraction. These kind of works, if glimpsed, may appear as a pure geometric exercise, on the contrary, they hide compositional complexity that seek in the tonal balance and equilibrium of forms a spatial illusion. For Kelly, therefore, it is important to reach the essence of the image, which must be a composition of clear signs, simply and easily recognised, borrowing the aphorism of the famous architect of the Bauhaus, Mies van der Rohe: “less is more”.