Scott Kelley presents his naturalist approach through detailed watercolor and gouache paintings. The series have ranged from fictional portraits of whaling children, to personified animals for his children’s book, BIRCH, to icebergs in Antarctica. Imbued with suggested narrative and character quality, fauna are an overarching focus of his practice.
Scott Kelley was born in Binghamton, New York in 1963. He studied at The Cooper Union School of Art, New York; The Slade School of Art, London; and was a fellow at The Glassell School of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. He had his first solo exhibition at the age of eighteen with The American Realist Gallery in New York, and has had over 15 solo exhibitions since then.
Kelley’s work is in numerous public and private collections, including the Portland Museum of Art and the Portland Public Library. He was awarded a fellowship to the Edward Albee Foundation in 1993. He also received a grant from the National Science Foundation Antarctic Artists and Writers Program, which sent him to Palmer Station, Antarctica in 2003. Scott Kelley lives and works on Peaks Island, Maine.