Art Reception, Jenny Kelly

Jenny Kelly is a self taught, local artist. Born in O'side-right up the street at Oceanside Community Hospital in 1959 and has lived here all her life. Jenny's mother, Dorothy, thought she had a real gift for art and encouraged her daughter even from her earliest scribbles. Jenny did a lot of drawing and painting as a kid and into high school. She had wanted to pursue her art more but became a serious drug addict instead and the art thing got seriously back burner'd ...but Jenny was lucky enough to get clean & sober in 1999-and finally she got focused!

"I use things from nature to depict my inner world, like pieces of a puzzle-I find them, get obsessed with them, and sometimes they take on a secret meaning and become recurring symbols in my paintings. I paint almost exclusively in water-color on coated masonite boards (specifically Ampersand aquaboard/clayboard). Now and then I will use water color on paper too. And very rarely I'll break out the oils. This group of paintings is kind of eclectic- some portraits, some symbolic of the shortness of life, and some are just where I work out the things in life that have my attention at the time, like therapy with out a therapist."
Jenny K.