Redland Art Awards
A Cloud Never Dies
Watercolour on paper, w 1260 x h 640, 2024
Redland Art Gallery, Cleveland
8 December 2024 – 28 January 2025
Redland Art Awards
A Cloud Never Dies
Watercolour on paper, w 1260 x h 640, 2024
Redland Art Gallery, Cleveland
8 December 2024 – 28 January 2025
Created from my father’s A cloud never dies is a plein-air painting made after his passing. This work captures the ephemeral nature of cloudscapes using a calligraphic gestures, delicate interplay of pigment with water and drawing stimulus from Thich Nhat Hanh's teaching, of the same name which contemplates continuity and rebirth as solace in grief.
In this seascape, the horizon is a stabilising element, contrasting with the destabilisation that accompanies profound loss. A small, minimalist pigmented paintings within the composition acknowledges the weighty concerns of landscape painting traditions and disrupts the form. Illuminating the interplay of presence and absence this work explores the horizon's essential role as a stabilising force.
ISEA (International Symposium of Electronic Art) Brisbane 2024
ISEA (International Symposium of Electronic Art) Brisbane 2024
Time Tracing (2020) & Wish you were here on VHS (2024)
Video Duration 15min
June 2024
Video Sample – Time Tracing
The Cube QUT Gardens
Time Tracing recreates the map lines of the Murrumbidgee river as giant water drawings in the earth, which–over time–move, extend and connect. Working in collaboration with local Wagga Wagga artists, this large-scale video work incorporates dance, movement and sound that simulate the power of the Murrumbidgee river catchment. This ancient and fragile ecosystem has held and traced story for communities throughout time; Time Tracing aims to honour the unique characteristics of the Murrumbidgee river, in all its all states; flood, drought and flow acknowledging the catchment’s significance to communities both past and present. Filmed on the banks of the river at dusk, with Indigenous and non-Indigenous emerging performers of Wagga Wagga, the video aims to celebrate the river’s connection to the land and people it supports across time as a collision of moving bodies utilise lines and repetition. Commissioned by Wagga Wagga Council
Artist: Kellie O’Dempsey
Sound: Mick Dick
Videographer: Damien Jenkins from Next Inline Productions
Performers: Wes Boney, Zoë Hadler, Natasha Strimpf, Markus Wright
Wish you were here on VHS is an immersive video of collaged test patterns, glitches and moving figures that transports the viewer into an uncertain landscape. The Wish you were here series began as a response to lockdowns and has continued to develop with transforming elements of humour and oddity. In this version, swimming eyeball fish collide with unstable analogue geometry. In search of progress, multiple figures attempt to travel, yet go nowhere in this oddball world. Their figurative and abstract forms gently smash together as we all fumble for connection. Through repetitive rhythm, monotonous loops, remnants of the pre-, in non-specific locations and an unspecified time, Wish You Were Here blends the physical and promises endless energy to keep trying in this weird and changing world.
Artist: Kellie O'Dempsey
Sound: Mick Dick
Augmented Reality & Animation: Helena Papageorgiou
Wish you were here (Grafton)
Wish you were here (Grafton)
Installation, 2024
Grafton Regional Gallery
17 Feb – 20 April 2024
Wish You Were Here began as a response to the lockdown life of the pandemic.
In this installation, uncanny household objects collide with uncertain landscapes. In search of progress, multiple figures attempt to travel yet go nowhere in this oddball world. Their figurative and abstract forms gently smash together to imitate how we fumble for connection.
Through repetitive rhythm, monotonous loops, neon lights, remnants of billboard posters, collaged objects and an unspecified time, Wish You Were Here blends the physical and the psychological for a moment of hypnotic but joyful reprieve.
Wish You Were is an immersive installation of collaged works on paper, projected animation, sound and Augmented Reality (AR).
Sound by Mick Dick and AR by Helena Papageorgiou.
Photos and Video by Sim on Hughes Photography
Wish You Were Here
Wish You Were Here
Jan Manton Gallery
3 - 28 October, 2023
Jan Manton Gallery exhibition link
Essay by Dr Louise R Mayhew
Jan Manton Gallery is pleased to present Kellie O'Dempsey's debut commercial exhibition Wish You Were Here on show between 3 - 28 October 2023. Wish You Were Here is an immersive installation of collaged works using paper, drawing, tape and video that transports the viewer into an uncertain landscape. Begun throughout the early days of the pandemic, worked and refined in 2023 during post-covid living, Wish You Were Here began as a response to lockdowns and has continued to develop with transforming elements of humour and oddity.
In this site-specific installation, uncanny household objects collide with uncertain landscapes. In search of progress, multiple figures attempt to travel, yet go nowhere in this oddball world. Their figurative and abstract forms gently smash together as we all fumble for connection. Through repetitive rhythm, monotonous loops, neon lights, remnants of billboard posters, collaged objects and an unspecified time, Wish You Were Here blends the physical and the psychological for a moment of hypnotic but joyful reprieve.
Wish You Were Here is an ongoing project and has previously been exhibited at: Redlands Art Gallery, Cleveland; Northsite Contemporary Art Space, Cairns; Outer Space; Brisbane and Bundaberg Regional Gallery. It has been selected for the 2022 Queensland Regional Art Award. O’Dempsey’s other past performances and works have also been shown at: Art after Dark; Pier 2/3; 18th Biennale of Sydney; MONA FOMA, Hobart; White Night Melbourne; and the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; City of Brisbane’s Botanica 2019 & 2021; as well as the interactive exhibition 'The Storytellers' at the Museum of Brisbane.
The exhibition is accompanied by a soundtrack composed by Mick Dick.
Fish animated by Helena Papageorgiou.
She Does (working title)
She Does (working title)
Installation, 2023
2 Dec 2023 to 18 Feb 2024
Noosa Regional Gallery
Installation, video, furniture 2023
Artist Kellie O’Dempsey
Videographer: Jorge Serra
Sound: Mick Dick
Movement Consultant: Ruby Donohoe
Photographer: Warwick Gow
She Does (working title) gives visual form to the memory and experience of the liminal space between dying and death. In caring for someone exiting this life, Kellie O’Dempsey felt like they were a caretaker of memories; and the objects—cupboards, boxes, antiquities and personal effects—wherein these memories are infused. She Does (working title) uses these objects to explore the complex fragility, intimacy, exhaustion and boredom of this temporal space, when one is confronted with their own mortality via the death of a parent. Drawing on installation, performance and video, O’Dempsey ritualises care and nurtures relationality to quietly honour women’s unseen labour and question the value of care in a society that values capital.
Noosa Regional Gallery Director Michael Brennan
Kellie O'Dempsey is renowned for an installation practice that integrates projection, video, collage, architectural space, gestural line, performance and digital drawing. She Does draws together various aspects of this way of working to sensitively explore the gravity and responsibility of caring for the life and memory of another – particularly one who was once responsible for caring for you.
The development of She Does (Working Title) was supported by RADF (Regional Arts Development Fund) & the Sunshine Coast Council
Bloom
Bloom
Presented by Orange Regional Gallery and Orange City Council
Kellie O’Dempsey x Mick Dick
Large-scale public performance
Roberstson Park, Orange, NSW
Friday 3 November 2023
Part of Orange City Council’s Future City Public Art project, Kellie O’Dempsey and Mick Dick presented light projections onto trees in the park, synchronized to the rhythm of Mick Dick’s music, during two after dark performances.
This large-scale projection performance that contemplates the transformation of blossoming flora as an act of wonder. Using light and sound, shape shifting images of illuminated colour move across existing foliage with growing lines, bold shapes and electric hues of blush, deep orange and amber.
Bloom acted as an emotional directive drawing the audience into the public space. Slow-moving lines of light grow to a monastic sound performed live in Robertson Park. This work offered elements of ranscendental connection and celebrates the phenomena of nature as shared experience of everchanging wonderment.
This interdisciplinary performance used video projection, animation and sound. Using iPads connected via HDMI cables to and a perfectly positioned projector. Together sound artist Mick Dick, Kellie O’Dempsey will drew and animate live to an improvised soundtrack of delay and reverb that filled the park.
Photography John Daly and Cecilie Knowles
Videography John daly
Hearing Line Seeing Sound
Hearing Line Seeing Sound
Performed at OUTBOUND Contemporary Dance x Live Art Festival, Sunshine Coast, Queensland
Kellie O’Dempsey x Mick Dick
Friday 6 October & 7 October, 2023
A live drawing and sound performance.
A multisensory integration where simultaneously experienced sensory modalities become a single multisensory perception. Operating as a shared experience, Hearing Line Seeing Sound is a moment in Kellie and Mick’s ongoing exploration of sound and vision as a collaborative improvised performance of line and tune. Simultaneously Kellie’s line drawings of light are site generated in direct conversation with Mick’s evolving tonal audio. They attempt to enter together as they trace their location at the intersection of drawing and audio sound and vision.
OUTBOUND Contemporary Dance x Live Art Festival supported by ArtsCoast, Sunshine Coast Council, Regional Arts Development Fund Queensland
Photographer Tim Birch
Video Time Birch
Short Video Ruby Donohoe
Big Sky
Big Sky
Video loop
2022
Sound Mick Dick
Noosa regional Gallery
Group Show – More than the some of its parts 4 FEB TO 5 APR 2023
More than the some of its parts brings together an ambitiously scaled ensemble of works in an installation that seeks to give a unique perspective on this special place locals call home.
Kellie’s video work Big Sky was exhibited in More than the some of its parts.
Considering the Sunshine Coast and the ever changing continuum of the wide ocean Big Sky offers us a timeless score. This video and sound work emulates the metered motion of the coastal landscape in attempt to radiate a sense of awareness and meditative calm. Through a continuous loop and hypnotic rhythm this work employs; the circle, video, colour and repetition using photographs of the beach.
As a coastal dweller I am witness to the majesty of the ever changing landscape. Magnificent colours, meteorological phenomena and masterful formations command my attention daily. The splendour of this ancient country invites an internal and external mindfulness. This work is an audio visual mantra, offering monastic bass tones and mesmerising filmic rhythms in attempt to encourage the viewer into a state of consciousness. A state that commands awareness, presence and respect. Big Sky is a memorising reminder that we are but tiny in the cosmic substance that is Deep Time.
Queensland Regional Art Award 2022
The Queensland Regional Art Awards (QRAA) is an annual visual arts prize and exhibition for established and emerging artists living in regional and remote Queensland. The program aims to provide a platform for further professional development.
The 2022 QRAA explored the concept of ‘Reframe’, calling artists to enter work which drew upon experiences and observations, reflecting upon the past year or two and responding to our changing world.
‘Reframe’ is an opportunity to see our current situation from a different perspective, to inspire problem solving and decision making and apply learning, whilst constructively responding, shifting and evolving.
2023 TOURING EXHIBITION LOCATIONS
Mulga Lands Gallery, Charleville – 29 March to 29 April 2023
Longreach Community Library, Longreach – 17 May to 28 May 2023
Bushmans Art Gallery, Blackall – 15 June to 2 July 2023
Coalface Art Gallery, Moranbah – 26 July to 13 August 2023
Botanic Gardens Visitor Centre, Cairns – 1 September to 24 September 2023
Goondiwindi Regional Civic Centre Gallery, Goondiwindi– 25 October to 28 November 2023
REFRAME
In 2022, the QRAA is an invitation to explore the concept of ‘Reframe’, calling artists to enter work which draws upon experiences and observations. It is a cause to reflect upon the past year or two and respond to our changing world.
‘Reframe’ is an opportunity to see our current situation from a different perspective. It inspires problem solving, decision making and learning, whilst constructively responding, shifting and evolving.
2022 QUEENSLAND REGIONAL ART AWARDS JUDGING PANEL
Aven Noah Jr., Curator, NorthSite Contemporary Arts, Bulmba-ja Arts Centre, Cairns.
Rebecca McDuff, Gallery Director, Bundaberg Regional Galleries, Bundaberg.
Elisabeth Findlay, Director, Queensland College of Art, Griffith University, Brisbane.
Hamish Sawyer, Independent curator and writer, Brisbane.
WISH YOU WERE HERE 1
Artist: Kellie O’Dempsey
Artist Location: Coolum Beach
Medium: mixed media collage and projection, 2021
Dimensions: 120 x 0 x 120 cm
Wish You Were Here 1 began as a re-imagining of post-pandemic life. Here, the uncanny collides with the uncertain. In search of progress a figure attempts to travel yet goes nowhere. Wish You Were Here 1 is a moving drawing of collaged works on paper with projection. Using repetitive rhythm and monotonous loops in a non-specific location and an unspecified time, this works blends the physical and the psychological for a moment of hypnotic and absurdity in an attempt to find balance in an uncertain world.
Photographer: Kellie O’Dempsey
Wish You Were Here: Northsite
Wish You Were Here
23 APRIL — 11 JUNE 2022
Northsite Contemporary Art Space, Cairns, Queensland
NorthSite Gallery 1
An immersive installation of collaged works using paper, projected animation, sound and Augmented Reality (AR) that transports the viewer into an uncertain landscape.
Created throughout the early days of the pandemic in 2020 and refined in 2022 during post-covid living, Wish You Were Here began as a response to lockdowns and has continued to develop with transforming elements of humour and oddity. In this site-specific installation, uncanny household objects collide with uncertain landscapes. In search of progress, multiple figures attempt to travel, yet go nowhere in this oddball world. Their figurative and abstract forms gently smash together as we all fumble for connection.
Through repetitive rhythm, monotonous loops, neon lights, Augmented Reality objects in non-specific locations and an unspecified time, Wish You Were Here blends the physical and the psychological for a moment of hypnotic but joyful reprieve.
Sound by Mick Dick and AR by Helena Papageorgiou.
SCCA Sunday Coaster: Hearing Line Seeing Sound
Hearing Line Seeing Sound
March 30th 2022
Kellie O’dempsey with sound artist Mick Dick Live drawing and sound performance in the Bunker at the Eumundi Hotel for the Sunshine Coast Arts Alliance Program Suncoaster.
Many years ago, I was at a talk by the German film director Wim Wenders (Wings of Desire, Paris Texas, Pina and so on). He spoke about film as an amalgam of sound and vision. Of course, I immediately recalled David Bowies’ song from the Low Album Sound and Vision.
“Blue, Blue electric blue that’s the colour of my room…. Waiting for the gift of sound and vision.”
From memory (which is not my best attribute) Wim Wenders went on to say that when sound and vision occur together, a 3rd sensory experience happens. A sense of wonder—a phenomenon where the audience can be transported.
This is called multisensory integration where simultaneously experienced sensory modalities become a single multisensory perception. Since humans are animals, we use sight, touch, taste and so on to affect how we make meaning and perceive our experiences in the world.
Operating as a shared experience, Hearing Line Seeing Sound is a moment in Kellie and Mick’s ongoing exploration of sound and vision as a collaborative improvised performance of line and tune. Simultaneously Kellie’s line drawings of light are site generated in direct conversation with Mick’s evolving tonal audio. They attempt to enter together as they trace their location at the intersection of drawing and audio sound and vision.
Kellie and Mick collaborate in developing site-generated improvised performances that attempt to transfix as they trace their location at the intersection of line and audio, sound and vision. Performances include MONA FOMA, Biennale of Sydney, White Night Melbourne, National Gallery of Australia and Museum of Brisbane.
Photographer: Timothy Birch
Presented by
What did you say 2022: Orange Regional Gallery
Artist Kellie O’Dempsey , Sound Mick Dick , AR Animations Helena Papageorgiou
Kellie O ’Dempsey’s What did you say?
Robertson Park, Orange NSW
Thursday 20 – Sunday 30 October 2022.
This interactive installation was a part of Orange City Council’s Future City Public Art Project.
Microscopic pores called stomata cover the surface of leaves to exchange carbon dioxide for oxygen. The word ‘stomata’ comes from the Greek word ‘stoma’ meaning ‘mouth’. What did you say? reimagines a tree’s stomata as the mouth through which the planet breathes. Viewers are asked to listen and engage in deep breathing, to be present in the moment and to connect, consider and rest. Using augmented reality, projected imagery and a soundscape of breathing, the artwork responds to our strange and ever-shifting social and environmental climate.
What did you say? is a free Future City Public Art installation funded by the NSW Government and Orange City Council.
Videographer: Madli Duff – Nomad Collective
Photography: Mitch Duff – Nomad Collective
What did you say 2022: Horizon Festival
What did you say 2022
Fri 26 Aug | 5.30–9pm
Sat 27 Aug — Sat 3 Sep | 5–9pm
Wonderland Spiegeltent, Cotton Tree Park, Maroochydore | Kabi Kabi Country
What did you say? reimagines a tree’s stomata as the mouth through which the planet breathes. The use of video and sound causes the mouth to breathe via animation and augmented reality.
What did you say? responds to the strange shifting social and environmental climate. Some mouths breathe with ease; others struggle to catch their breath; a silent few are deathly still. Viewers are asked to both listen and engage in deep and conscious breathing, to be present in the moment and to connect, consider and breathe.
What did you say? Was projected onto the trees around the gardens of The Wonderland Spiegeltent garden each night.
Creative team:
Projection: Kellie O’ Dempsey
Sound: Michael Dick (sound)
Augmented Reality: Helena Papageorgiou
