Kelly Norman | Strictly Landscape

Cast down the walls. Breach and breathe. Inhalation. BREATH, inside and outside. This concerns the thorax. The muscular walls of the rib-cage, of the defenses of the thorax, exposed to the winds. Your breath has been set free, not taken away. An understatement: mouth to mouth contact with distance, as though with an infinity of air. And because the walls are down, there is no swelling.

Jean-Francois Lyotard, 1988, p182^[i]

Kelly’s work is centered on topographical land and coastalscapes. Walking every morning, she is impelled by the need to move and be in open space to make art.
By allowing herself to be present in a landscape, and to revisit it repetitively, she develops an intensely personal relationship with the area she is absorbing.
The ritual act of walking every day has become the fundamental starting point for her work, capturing both the physicality of moving through space, and the
emotions evoked by tracing the routes, tracks, textures, hills, cliffs, sea and fields that she is exploring.
Her work documents the shifts and movements that shape and pattern the natural terrain; including those from the seasons and weather. The geological record of stratified cliffs, and the dips and furrows of a valley transformed over time… The wild fennel that towers above the chaos of Spring colours by a riverbank and along with herself, the eagle mates she knows by sight, keeping careful watch.
Drawing her viewer along a path that helps them traverse not simply a landscape, or even a place, but an immersive experience that encapsulates both the temporal and spatial qualities of movement. Drawings and sketches are crucial to this process, as it is through this exploratory activity that each study is transformed via her memories and thought processes.

^[i] Jean-Francois Lyotard, 1988, The Inhuman: Reflections on Time, Editions Galilee, Paris. Translated by Geoffrey Bennington and Rachel Bowlby, 1991, Polity Press, Cambridge

Artist Statement:

“I find that pushing paint around a canvas en plein air is representative of the way that I move through a landscape. The visual ideas that I want to convey in charcoal and paint are of being present and of moving through space, my vision constantly changing. By exploring mark making, colour blocks, texture, line, and form through my paint-play, I hope to express the freedom and lyricism of joy that I feel when walking. “

Born in Bedfordshire UK in 1976.In 1998 graduated with a BA HONS Visual Studies at the University of Portsmouth.

In 2003 Kelly moved to Cyprus to complete a POST GRAD DIP in Fine Art Practice at The Cyprus College of ART in Lemba.

In 2005 she permanently settled in Cyprus and moved to Limassol.

In 2019/20 she completed the Turps Banana online Correspondence Course. Her mentor was Barbara Nicholls. 

Living in a village outside Limassol with her Cypriot husband and 3 children Kelly paints most days in her home studio. She holds art workshops for children and has coordinated community Art projects. Having had 4 solo shows in Limassol and Nicosia and has participated in several group shows in Cyprus UK and Bulgaria. 

Recent selected shows:

 2022:

• Beep Painting Prize Everything had changed nothing has changed, The Elysium Gallery, Swansea.
• Summer Group Show Psifida Gallery Paphos Cyprus.
• The Drawing Open 2022, No Format Gallery Deptford London.

2021:

• The lido store open 2021 The Lido stores Margate UK. 
•  The Royal Academy Summer show in London, UK.
• In June 2021 her new painting series on newsprint was selected for The London Paint Cub International Open CALL TOGETHER THROUGH PAINTING.
• In March 2021 her work was selected for the First Newsprint Open Call at The Three Works Gallery UK.
• In 2021 she participated in the online Turps Banana Correspondence Course End of year show ‘In Absentia’ at the online platform cohortart.com. 

She has work in private and public collections including the Limassol and Nicosia State collection and Intership Navigation in Limassol. 

Her drawing ‘Head in the Shed’ was selected for the Larnaca Biennale in 2018 . ‘Caved in’ a charcoal drawing was selected for second round 2012 VAO UK.