Millie Kelly at MONTI8

Artist: Millie Kelly

Exhibition title: Year One

Venue: MONTI8, Latina, Italy

Date: June 24 – July 24, 2023

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and MONTI8

MONTI8 is delighted to present “Millie Kelly – Year One”, debut solo show of the artist with the gallery, opening on June 24.
Millie Kelly’s recent paintings are a celebration of life and painting. In her show ‘Year One’ Kelly exhibits six new paintings as an ode to her year-old daughter, Bonnie. Kelly approaches painting with notions of limitless imagination, endless construction and deconstruction, rubbing away, painting over, reimagining, birthing and rebirthing. She uses painting as a story, a guide and a journey through her first year of motherhood; hosting her new identity as an artist mother.

Abundant in colour, joy and humour, the imagery dances on the canvas and in the gallery space; inviting the viewer’s eye and allowing her stories to stream around you. There is an honesty to the way in which the works are painted – layers and ghostly outlines of ‘workings- out’ are visible, canvas is left stained with diluted paint that luminates the canvas’ ground beneath, as if honouring both the hardships and successes of each painting’s life. Rendered through persistent balancing and harmonisation of composition and colour, Kelly paints intuitively and in response to other colours and shapes on the canvas. Whilst a very basic composition is sketched initially, imagery of vegetation and animal life grows as she paints, saturating the canvas with the flora and fauna of her own imagined world.

Millie Kelly (b.1993, Teignmouth, Devon) is a painter based in Norwich, UK. Kelly received a BA Hons in Fine Art: Painting from Wimbledon College of Art (UAL) in 2015. She has exhibited both in the UK and internationally with her most recent solo exhibition PRECIOUS CARGO with Gallery Ascend, Hong Kong in May 2022. Recent group shows include DOWN TO EARTH Badr El Jundi Gallery, Madrid, Spain 2023, WELL COLD Moosey, Norwich, UK 2022, HIDDEN MESSAGE, Gallery Func, Shanghai, China 2022, RITES OF PASSAGE, Unit Gallery, London, UK 2021. Art fairs include ART021Shanghai 2022 with Gallery Func.