Kerryl Shirley
Kerryl Shirley has been working as an artist for 40 years. Educated at South Australian School of Art, Underdale, she majored in painting with a minor in photography.
Shirley has continually exhibited over her long career, Australia wide. She was the first artist in residence for Adelaide’s Fringe Festival and her assemblages reflect her early beginnings.
Shirley works meticulously and builds a body of work, either painting or construction, until her preoccupation has exhausted itself. Her particular influences are Braque, Matisse, Picasso, Nevelson and Gasgoine. She deeply respects the artistic tradition which has educated, influenced and inspired her.
Artists Kerryl Shirley and NW Wenhuda are currently showing new bodies of work at YAVA that derive from their intention to make what they want to make. There is freedom and nonconformity in this originality, where the artist is unmoved by the pressures of trend, fashion or the zeitgeist.
The seemingly polar positions of these two artists – Shirley well established in her artistic career, Wenhuda an emerging artist – is a counterpoint to their common pursuit of translating experience and the world through their work. It is complementary, yet distinct; the two artists enjoy and support each other’s practice, witnessing the development of concepts, ideas and their resolution.
Shirley calls herself a figurative abstractionist and revisits the theme of women in interiors with each body of work. Her work is sophisticated and fits comfortably with an international audience as easily as a local or regional one.
Her 40-year long career has recently included being selected as a finalist in both the Portia Geach Memorial Award (for women artists; portraiture) and the Kennedy Prize (for the pursuit and expression of beauty). Her work is not typical of any one space or place or genre: it challenges the sense of belonging as traditionally understood.
Her recent interview with Cora Zon (Yarra Valley FM), giving viewers a deeper insight into the artists and their motivations, is available for listening via the link above.