About

 

Hello, I'm Charlie Kelly, I’m an abstract sculptor, making small sculptures for the home.

As an artist I’m inspired by the shapes and forms that appear in nature, and my wish with this sculpture is to convey the sense of alignment we feel when submerged in it. 

I love working in clay, it’s tactile and dynamic and (adapting during the Covid-19 lockdown) I taught myself to work with digital sculpting software, so some of my pieces are cast from 3D prints. Clay is my first love though, as there’s a physical flow required to manipulate it and connecting to that is very satisfying.

My artwork focuses around natural forms found in plant life. I'm continually inspired by nature and currently creating work in the form of seed pods. In this context seed pods represent pure potential and new energy. Each form has its own qualities and representational patterning. 

Walking in forests has given me an inner calm that I didn’t know was missing until I was soaking it in, dropping to a centred level inside my body. It’s been addictive and necessary. It’s this feeling that inspires and drives my artwork and I hope to bring an element of this into it. In our busy lives, we all need a small piece of inner sanctuary to remedy the tech-heavy way we live today.

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I trained at London College of Fashion as a prop maker, and for a short period of time I worked in the film and theatre industry. 

I had the great fortune of being trained by some amazing artists on projects for the National Theatre Costume Props department, Star Wars Creature FX team and Selfridges (amongst others) creating weird and wonderful props, puppets and displays. 

In the end my instinct to make sculpture won over and I left the industry, but working with these artists gave me the opportunity to see what imagination and creative intelligence can build. I love the problem solving element of fabricating sculptural forms and I'm incredibly grateful for this experience, because prop-making instilled that in me. Prop-making taught me the skills and techniques I needed to realise these natural forms. 

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Following my creative instinct has given me this joy that I wish you could feel too, because it’s amazing and I feel incredibly lucky to have found it.

Being an artist is a right we are all born with, and my only hope is you find your way to your own artistic expression and run with that ball.

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My influences are Peter Randall-Page, Sibylle Pasche, Patricia Picinini, Ron Mueck, Ernst Haeckel, Sophie Elizabeth Thompson and many many more.

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I’m happy to chat to you if you have an idea for a commission, or would like to speak to me about any of the pieces you see here.

charlie@charliekellysculpture.com