Mary Cullen Kelly likes to time travel using paint, print and collage. She makes pictures and objects about moments and places that might have come from a movie, a dream or something seen in a shop window. They have lots of colour and texture and she thinks of them as small-scale ‘magic carpets’, where the destinations can feel familiar and strange at the same time. That is her intention, because life often feels exactly like that.
Mary graduated from the National College of Art & Design Dublin with a degree in Fine Art Print, and studied some Art Therapy in Crawford College Cork as well as doing a Masters in Disability Studies at UCD, which focused on engagement with arts activities and how valuable that can be for the person.
‘I make paintings and prints, usually on Fabriano paper and often on a small scale. There’s a whiff of time travel about them. They often include objects that might transport us to a place or moment in time. They can feel like an invitation somewhere we can daydream. They are colour-rich, which I deem to be a necessity of life. With the paintings, incorporating the alla prima technique of wet-into-wet oil painting gives an energy and motion to the work. I’m interested too in what happens in the creative process – the state of ‘flow’ that can occur while making the work, as described by the theorist Mihalyi Czikszentmihalyi, which I think leaves something behind.’
Mary values making things and talking about making things, and creative communities are of huge importance to her. So when she moved to Carlow over 20 years ago, along with two other artists she founded Blueprint Artists Network, putting on regular pop-up arts events so that lots of making and talking could go on. She also joined Blackstack Print Studio in Kilkenny, got involved in street art with the Pure Thinking community arts project and became a member of We Go On writers group in VISUAL Carlow. She is currently attending the Critical Correspondence Course at the RHA School.
Her solo exhibition ‘Carousel’ showed at Dunamaise Art Centre, Portlaoise from 15th August to 20th September 2025.
Selected and Group Shows
Artforms at Dunmore 2025
RHA Annual 2025
Dunamaise Arts Centre Open 2024 (prize winner)
Dunamaise Open 2023
RHA Annual 2022
GOMA Open Submission Waterford 2022
Evocation, Blue Egg Gallery Wexford 2020
Blackstack Summer Show Kilkenny 2019
Butler House Print Exhibition Kilkenny 2019
Blackstack Summer Show 2018
Before/Beyond, Kilkenny Arts Office 2018
‘2027’ No.10 Dublin Street Carlow 2017
St Luke’s Hospital Kilkenny 2017-2018
Open Submission GOMA Waterford 2017
EP16, Connacht Tribune Printworks Galway 2016
Blackstack Printmakers, Rothe House Kilkenny 2016
Blackstack at Grennan Mills Thomastown 2016
Limerick Printmakers Open 2015
RHA Annual 2014
Being Here, Dungarvan Arts Centre 2014
RHA Annual 2013
‘Level’ Dunamaise 2012
Birr Vintage & Art Festival 2012
RHA Annual 2010
City Artsquad Anniversary Show, Mill St Studios Dublin 2010
Greenacres Open Wexford 2010
Carlow Selected Artists, Eigse 2009
Artforms Gallery Summer Group Show 2009
St. Luke’s Hospital, Kilkenny Arts Festival 2013
BLUEPRINT Eigse Festival, 2008-2017
In the Flow, Cafe Formenti 2008
Solo
Carousel, Dunamaise Art Centre, Portlaoise
Dreamlands, Visual Centre for Contemporary Art, Carlow
Meditations, Tullow Civic Offices
Education
BA Fine Art Print, National College of Art and Design Dublin 1993
Certificate Art Therapy, Crawford College, Cork 1998
MSc Disability Studies, UCD 2004
Prof Dip in Creativity, Innovation & Leadership UCD 2023
Member
Artlinks
Visual Artists Ireland
Crafts Council of Ireland
Blueprint Artists Network
We Go On Writers Group
Collections
Public and private collections including:
Bank of Ireland
Laois County Council
Kilkenny County Council
St Luke’s Hospital Kilkenny
Mary Cullen Kelly 