David Kelly has been working as an artist and teacher in Australia and South-East Asia since the early 1980s. His work features in private collections throughout Asia, Europe, Australia, the USA and South America, as well as corporate, consular and national collections. He is represented by ReDot Fine Art Gallery, Singapore, and is a graduate of the University of South Australia,  School of Art, Architecture and Design – Bachelor of Education (Secondary Art) and Master of Visual Art – where he has also been a painting and drawing studio tutor.

“… the diverse environments in which I have lived and traveled provide the inspiration for my work, drawing on distilled memories to capture something of their essence. An emotion related to a place and time rather than a recreation of physical reality. The results of nature's own creative and degenerative processes. The tactile and visual qualities of weathered surfaces and the stories they tell.  A personal response to events of that place. Dilapidated shearing sheds behind my old South Australian farmhouse, walls of Cambodia’s Angkor and Tuol Sleng prison museum, overgrown ruins of Argentina’s Missiones and seasonal change of the ubiquitous eucalypts surrounding my home studio. The process of all that we are and do, returning to the earth, also seen in the rocky outcrops of Arkaroola and the Kimberley, bleached coastlines of Yorke Peninsula, twisting sungai of Borneo and most recently the weathered, volcanic island of Jeju, South Korea, where I have lived since 2017. All these life experiences are drawn together in my paintings by the common thread of aged textures, deeply weathered surfaces, and rich colours of the earth. The outcomes are themselves products of elemental processes, each with their own story, each a unique entity...”

This site provides a summary of major exhibitions and bodies of work as an indicative overview rather than seeking to be a comprehensive record of my practice.  The social media links within each page showcase work in progress which fluctuates between periods of productivity and pause, largely dictated by my current, full-time teaching position.  Enquires may be directed to the email below or through social media messaging.