Nicole Kelly is an Australian Artist based in Wollongong who works primarily as a painter. Kelly’s paintings critically engage with the nature of landscape painting and its place in Australian contemporary art. Cutting across the expectations of the landscape genre, Kelly’s work unsettles modes of representation. Kelly has been awarded the Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship (2009), the Hazelhurst Regional Gallery Art on Paper Local Artist Award (2011), the Manning Naked and Nude 2D Award (2015) the Hurford Hardwood Portrait Prize (2018), and the Royal Art Society of NSW Young Artist Award (2020). She has recently been awarded the Viktoria Marinov Scholarship for female artists (2021) and the Australian Government Postgraduate Research Scholarship (2019) for her recent research into unsettling contemporary landscape painting at the University of New South Wales. She has undertaken residencies in France (2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2010) and Spain (2016) and has completed major public commissions for the Sutherland and St George Hospitals in Sydney. Her work has been selected for inclusion in multiple awards across Australia including the Wynne Prize at the Art Gallery of NSW. Kelly’s work is held in the collections of Macquarie University Sydney, the Shoalhaven Regional Gallery, the Moran Art Foundation and Lismore Regional Gallery, among others. The late Edmond Capon, former director of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, has described her work as ‘bold and confident. It’s got spirit, that intellectual dynamic that comes out of the soul of an artist.’ Her work is represented by Arthouse Gallery in Sydney.

​

Download CV for more information.