Artist Bio
Patricia Kelly lives in County Fermanagh. She attended the art college at Ulster University in Belfast where she obtained a B.A. Honours degree in Fine Craft Design, specialising in embroidered textiles.
Using free motion embroidery techniques to create her works, which in recent times have become more abstract, there is a strong focus on the use of the stitched line. Inspiration and influence come from many sources including the Japanese concept of wabi-sabi, which is to see beauty in the imperfect; as well as from the rugged landscape and skies in the west of Ireland, where lines created by tangled hedgerows are silhouetted against coloured skies.
The sense of belonging to a place, where family history is interwoven through present lives greatly influences Patricia too. Incorporating recycled old textiles, often used by ancestors in quilt making, conveys something of the multi layered nature of lives linked, stitched together – changing but staying the same, shifting, breathing, living.
