A Cloud Never Dies
Video projection, charcoal and pastel on paper, 2024
Storm + Night & Bend in the Horizon
A Cloud Never Dies,
Painting, collage, projection
Jan Manton Gallery, Brisbane
21 January - 6 February, 2025
A Cloud Never Dies draws upon the teachings of Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, who proposes that a cloud does not disappear but transforms into rain, mist, or snow—an allegory for perpetual change. This notion of transformation resonates deeply within the work, which seeks to capture the transient and tempestuous beauty of the coastal sky while navigating personal grief and loss.
Rooted in the experiential and gestural, the series incorporates Plein-air painting, lusciously pigmented watercolours on paper, punctuated with collage, and video projection. Created during a period of profound personal transition, the work attempts to translate the fleeting life of clouds, sky, and the horizon in pigmented hues. The act of painting at dusk—when the light shifts rapidly—became a ritual, echoing the instability of memory and experience. The horizon line recurs throughout as both a stabilising and disrupting force and a point of transition between presence, absence, colour and plane.
Revisiting the atmospheric studies of J.M.W. Turner and the immersive colour fields of Mark Rothko during the creation of this work, the watercolours range from naturalistic depictions to abstract fields, to distortion, where pigment and water blur unpredictably. These evolving forms reflect both environmental flux and internal states of transformation.
Through the integration of video projection and collage, the work moves beyond the frame, creating immersive spaces that blur reality and illusion. A Cloud Never Dies meditates on impermanence, resilience, and environmental care, inviting consideration on cycles of change, loss, and renewal.
She Does (Working Title) on Paper
Video projection, charcoal and pastel on paper, 2024
She Does (Working Title) on Paper
Video projection, charcoal and pastel on paper, 2024
She Does (Working Title) on Paper gives visual form to the memory and experience of the liminal space between dying and death. In caring for someone exiting this life, I felt like a caretaker of memories and the objects—boxes, antiquities, and personal effects—wherein these memories are infused.
The light of video projection, the friable and condensed application of charcoal and pastel, and torn paper evidence the complex fragility, intimacy, and exhaustion of this temporal space when one is confronted with their own mortality via the death of a parent.
Driven by a hypnotic dirge the projection of performing in my father’s suit is layered and animated into ghostly actions onto sweeping gestural lines and soft monochromic tones. This drawing ritualises care and nurtures relationality to quietly honour women’s unseen labour and question the value of care in a society that values capital.
Wish You Were Here (Redcliffe)
Installation, 2024
Redcliffe Art Gallery, Moreton Bay, QLD.
4 May — 13 July 2024
Wish You Were Here (Redcliffe)
Installation, 2024
Redcliffe Art Gallery, Moreton Bay, QLD.
4 May — 13 July 2024
Sound by Mick Dick.
Documentation Video by Christine Hall.
Wish You Were Here is an installation of collages, projected video, light, tape drawing and Augmented Reality. The project is a humorous retort to to the uncertainty in this era of compound crisis and the unseen labor of women. Uncanny household objects collide with uncertain landscapes. In search of progress, multiple figures attempt to travel, yet go nowhere. This interdisciplinary work transforms the isolation and endurance of contemporary life into a mesmerising carnival of ghostly silhouettes. Through repetitive rhythm and monotonous loops, non-specific locations and an unspecified time, this work blends the physical and the psychological for a moment of hypnotising and joyful reprieve.
This work borrows absurdist collage from Dada; steals its introspective title from Pink Floyd’s song of the same name; and visualises my experience of being a primary carer. The work acknowledges the emotional, psychological and physical balancing act of holding space for family. Domestic items indirectly speak to the unpaid, and unacknowledged, yet nevertheless expected responsibilities that women fulfil in the family environment. For me, the unknowable and surreal landscape of transitioning from daughter to parenting my parent is one of endurance. Wish you were here combines the loss of self, associated with caring for others, with a psychedelic continuum that promises endless energy to keep going in this weird and changing world. In terms of media: works on paper provide an accessible point of entry to the exhibition, while new media, lighting and projection components will expose audiences to the possibilities of interdisciplinary installation
Fisher’s Ghost Art Award
Bathroom Scene
Video Installation (2x screen and wallpaper) , w 200 x h 160, 2024.
Video Duration: 09:00
Campbelltown Arts Centre NSW
Fisher’s Ghost Art Award
Bathroom Scene
Video Installation ( 2 x screen and wallpaper) , w 200 x h 160, 2024.
Video Duration: 09:00
Campbelltown Arts Centre NSW
Bathroom Scene is a two-channel video installation that captures the liminal space between dying and death. Against faux woodgrain wallpaper, Kellie O'Dempsey ritualises care into surreal scenes and hypnotic loops, honouring women's unseen labour while questioning the value of care in a capital-driven world.
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
Wish You Were Here in Pink with Eye Ball Fish
Video and mixed media, w 150 x h 150, 2023
Wish You Were Here in Pink with Eye Ball Fish
Video and mixed media, w 150 x h 150, 2023
This work began during the stop-start-stasis of COVID-19, transforming the isolation and gruelling continuation of the pandemic into a mesmerising carnival of ghostly silhouettes. Within colliding and overlapping media—video, collage and hand drawing - multiple figures attempt to travel yet go nowhere. The work visualises the often unseen, monotonous, and highly gendered care work. The repetitive rhythms and endless loops evoke the milieu of domestic labour and the intertwined states of endurance and exhaustion. Through the work’s non-specific locations, elusive temporal registers, the piece visualizes the often unseen and gruelling aspects of care work in a hypnotic and lurid cycle highlighting the multidimensional nature of experience creating an absurd yet uplifting work
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.
Dis/close
Dis/close
Kellie O’Dempsey
2014 | Digital video | 4:23 minutes (performance photographs)
This work aims to discuss the relationship between the individual and the constant manipulation of facts by the media and governing political powers, which appear to conceal and blindfold the populace. In silence, through a game of reveal and conceal, the environment and the appearance of an individual is transformed through digital drawing that exposes the head of a man in disquiet and contemplation. The hand drawn, pixelated lines consistently uncover, redefine and blur what is actually available to us. Through the process of drawing as enquiry, Dis/close identifies and investigates the interconnected experience of human engagement. The use of the Tagtool (live digital drawing and animation device) aims to translate those elements into a drawn video work that allows an authentic process of collaboration and improvisation. The outcome, a strange, poetic intervention of the digital drawing that uncovers, confuses and transforms an isolated man.
Describing her work as a Performance Drawing practice, O’Dempsey aims to enable an inclusive form of cultural interaction via interdisciplinary performance and play. Hybrid in form, O’Dempsey’s practice incorporates projection, video, collage, architecture, gestural line and digital drawing. Investigating notions of transformation and the uncanny, she collaborates with performers combining hand drawn marks with digital projection and live animation. Experimental and emergent, O’Dempsey invites the audience to engage directly with the visceral process of making.
Photographer and Videographer: Kris Garner