Kelly O’Neal – Biography

Kelly O’Neal was educated at Toronto’s OCAD University. She began her artistic career in Los Angeles, producing one-of-a-kind apparel. Her flamboyant designs found their way into several popular television shows, adorning both pop stars and movie actors. She worked with rare and antique fabrics, combining new materials with exotic Japanese kimonos.

Kelly’s transition from wearable art to drawing and painting began in the late 1990s. Since then, her work has been influenced by iconic women’s clothing in contemporary pop culture, traditional forms of Japanese figurative woodcuts, medieval French architectural details, the emotionally-charged colours of Mexico and, the richness and abundance of Africa’s animals and foliage.

Kelly has worked from studios in California, Mexico, France and Kenya. Currently, she is painting in the mountainous area of Nevada and soon will be working in a studio over looking the French Alps. (With the influence of these vistas there may be more boot paintings on the horizon.)

Her work has been exhibited at galleries in the U.S., Canada , France, and Switzerland. Halde Galerie, in Switzerland,  has represented her for nearly two decades.