I’m Kelly - an artist and observer, drawn to noticing the world around me.

I’m based in Saltaire in West Yorkshire, and my creative life moves between painting, drawing, photography, and occasionally writing. I work primarily in oil paint, graphite, and more recently I’ve been experimenting with coloured pencils. My practice isn’t restricted to one medium - it shifts depending on what I’m drawn to at any given time, whether that’s a canvas, a sketchbook, fibre arts, or my camera.

Much of my work is shaped by time spent outdoors in the Yorkshire landscape, along my local river, and in the quiet moments of every day beauty that reveal themselves when you slow down and pay attention. I have a deep love of nature, wildlife, shifting light, the elements, and the moon. In my art I’m influenced by the old masters, romanticism, the pre-raphaelites and the impressionists, but just as much by everyday life and the act of observing it closely. Some of my favourite artists are John Singer Sargent, J.W. Waterhouse, Monet, Caravaggio, Bernini and Canova. My favourite contemporary artists are Flora Yukhnovich, and Jimena Reno.

I’ve been sharing my work and musings online for many years, alongside an evolving creative practice that has moved through different forms over time. That sense of documentation - of noticing, recording, and reflecting - has become part of how I make sense of the world around me.

Alongside my visual work, I read widely, including bot fiction and non fiction, contemporary and classic literature - I’ve been a book lover since I was very young. I’m drawn to stories with atmosphere and emotional depth, especially those with a dreamlike quality: the uncanny, the slightly unsettling, and the places where the ordinary starts to feel strange. Some of my favourite books include: Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier, The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt, the ACOTAR series and The Mermaid of Black Conch by Monique Rafferty.

Alongside this, I also have a long standing practice in music. I’m a classically trained pianist currently working towards my Diploma. My music sits quietly alongside everything else - another way of working with rhythm, emotion, and attention. My piano journey has taught me many important lessons about patience. My favourite composers are Debussy, Chopin, Beethoven, Einaudi, Hans Zimmer and Dario Marianelli.

I’m also interested history, heritage, seasonal living and the cycles that shape how we move through the world. There’s a sense of deeper connection I return to often - to place, to time, to community, and to something more intuitive and spiritual that sits beneath the surface of things. The old ways if you will.

Across my practice, I return to the same themes: attention, the natural world, tenderness, memory, grief, and presence. I’m interested in the beauty in ordinary moments and I like to keep my practice responsive and guided by what I’m noticing at the time. I write about what I’m thinking through on my blog - books, ideas, creativity, and the ways art and daily life overlap.

This site is a space for that ongoing process - a record of making, noticing and returning to what matters to me.