Referencing everyday street life in the city, London-based Frank Kiely marries simple illustration with sharp blasts of flat colour to accentuate aspects of a scene or the story depicted in the work.
Sometimes the works are very simple line drawings, completely stripped bare of colour apart from one stark red, distinctive London phone box, or one black taxi cab that stands out.
Kiely’s works are an exploration of city life, which spurs from his arrival in London eight years ago as a student after spending his whole life in Ireland. Confronted with a multicultural society that was such…
Referencing everyday street life in the city, London-based Frank Kiely marries simple illustration with sharp blasts of flat colour to accentuate aspects of a scene or the story depicted in the work.
Sometimes the works are very simple line drawings, completely stripped bare of colour apart from one stark red, distinctive London phone box, or one black taxi cab that stands out.
Kiely’s works are an exploration of city life, which spurs from his arrival in London eight years ago as a student after spending his whole life in Ireland. Confronted with a multicultural society that was such a contrast to the monoculture he had experienced back in Ireland, he was now in the minority and moving to the capital had a profound effect of his Irish identity in many ways.
The body of work that followed is a memoir of Kiely’s London journey; the city’s icons such as red pillar boxes, telephone booths and buses served as a constant reminder of where he was, and the works became coded stories of the artist’s experiences and relationships in his new surroundings. Kiely soon began to include his friends and family in his works, juxtaposing images of them into different places in London, perhaps illustrating the fact that he felt divided between his life in the city and his life at home in Ireland.
Born in Ireland, Kiely has been a printmaker for over five years after graduating from the Royal College of Art in 2002 and has exhibited widely in Britain, Europe and USA.
His work can be found in a various collections including BP Intl, Boyle Civic Collection, Clifford Chance, Trinity College Dublin, University College Dublin, Guardian/PMPA Insurance, Royal College of Art and Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers. He is a member of the Black Church Print Studio, Dublin and is on the council of The Royal Society of Painter printmakers in London. He currently works from a studio in Brixton, London, while occasionally working from Dublin in the Black Church Print Studio.
He is in private collections in Australia, Denmark, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland ,The Netherlands ,Sweden, Turkey, United Kingdom and United States of America. Recent exhibitions include “City Life”, Anvari Art, London, 2006, “Memoirs Of A London Journey”, Mark Jason Fine Art, London, 2004, Solo show, National Concert Hall, Dublin, 2003 and “I Must Not Talk Between Classes”, Bank of Ireland Arts Centre, Dublin in 2000.
