Diarmuid Kelley | Recent Works

Leading Modern British and Contemporary art gallery, Offer Waterman, present a major solo exhibition of new works by Diarmuid Kelley.

Kelley is one of the UK’s leading portrait artists whose work features in a variety of esteemed collections and institutions, notably the National Portrait Gallery, London, and Chatsworth House. The forthcoming exhibition will include a selection of portraits and still-lifes.

From an early age, Kelley has stood apart from his peers. As a student, despite enjoying the prevailing mode of painterly abstraction, Kelley was more preoccupied by still life and portraiture. He has pursued these traditional disciplines with a keen awareness of contemporary art practice, creating paintings which are timeless in their appeal.

Kelley’s obsession with the use of light in European painting - in which he looks to Caravaggio’s theatrical drama and Vermeer’s ethereal interiors - defines his oeuvre. His studio has been carefully adapted so that he can precisely control the quality of light. Recreating the methods used by Joseph Wright of Derby and countless Dutch painters of candlelit scenes, the artist has constructed a small enclosed room which has a window frame on one side exposed to strong daylight, while the other sides are curtained. By covering the window to different degrees, he achieves a dramatically darkened interior within which to create his compositions.