Kerri Kerley ‘Window Seat’

An artist in various forms over the years, Kerri Left school at 16 and after completing a course in Graphic Design, she landed a job with Ken Done as an Artist Assistant, she then went on to have a successful career in advertising as a designer, typographer, and illustrator. Later leaving the industry to raise a family in Katoomba in the Blue Mountains.

“Creating has always been something I’ve done, it’s my lifeblood. I began painting in oils during COVID and haven’t stopped. Drawing on my life’s experiences and surrounds for inspiration.”

Kerri has recently made finalist in the The Hawkesbury Art Prize 2023, Paddington Art Prize 2022, The Lethbridge 2000 Small Scale Art Prize 2022 and The Doyles Art Prize 2022.

“This body of work represents a whirlwind of a year. Moving house 3 times in 2 years to renovate 3 houses, from the NSW Central Coast to Queensland and back to NSW where we bought a rundown 1920’s concrete cottage in a little town called Rylstone in March 2023. Since then, I found myself painting from a tiny room at the front of the house which was the old veranda. It has a little window at the very end that is generally covered in cobwebs, this is the perfect spot to paint. The light was beautiful most of the day and it was an opportunity to change the scenery through the window to anything I wanted, depending on my mood.

There is not much of a garden, until we renovate, however I’ve managed to save some of the 100yr old roses and plant some other flowers around to satisfy the gardener in me. Most of the flowers in my paintings are from my modest plantings around the house, foraged weeds from the side of the road or are gifted to me from some of the wonderful friends we’ve made.

I often use objects such as bowls, books, crockery etc that I am intimately attached to. They remind me of another time. Time spent with my grandmother, my children, or exotic places I’ve visited. I am intrigued by the idea that a simple object, a smell, a flower, or time of year can instantly transport you back to a moment to be enjoyed over and over again. For instance, the smell of wisteria always takes me back to my nan’s back yard, which was right next to the biggest mulberry tree you could ever imagine. We would pick buckets of mulberries for mulberry pie, the smell of sweet pastry and mulberry jam filling the kitchen.

It is from these experiences; I compose a simple scene to convey my thoughts. Drawing directly on the canvas on to a ground of burnt sienna with a brush to build the composition, mostly from life, I then begin adding colour, applying loose brush strokes that imply rather than adopting a more precise interpretation.

The title of this exhibition “Window Seat” comes from the idea that not only are there many windows in these paintings but also that it gives the viewer a window seat into my world of imagery and thoughts, it is also the seat that everyone wants, one that provides a place of imagination and contemplation.”