FAMOUS ARTIST
Joan Marie Kelly is an accomplished artist, educator, and community facilitator known for using art as a bridge to connect people and address profound societal challenges. Her artistic practice includes creating and selling evocative artworks, accepting portrait commissions, and collaborating with scholars to integrate creative processes into their research initiatives.
Joan has held solo exhibitions in New York, New Delhi, Kolkata, and Fez, Morocco. Her work has also been featured in prestigious biennales, including Beijing, İzmir, Korea, Dhaka, and Casablanca, as well as in group exhibitions across New York, Connecticut, Paris, Italy, Beijing, Korea, Thailand, Algeria, Tunisia, Moscow, and Ulaanbaatar. She has presented at COP28 and COP29, contributing to critical discussions on environmental issues through an artistic lens.
Her transformative workshops, particularly those focusing on storytelling and drawing, address collective trauma among survivors of environmental disasters. She also fosters artistic engagement between communities, creating platforms for connection and dialogue where none previously existed.
From 2005 to May 2024, Joan was a distinguished faculty member at Nanyang Technological University, School of Art, Design, and Media in Singapore. In 2025, she joined Woxsen University as a Professor of Practice in Hyderabad, India. Her publication Invisible Personas (2019) showcases 52 thought-provoking artworks alongside four essays, reflecting her deep engagement with humanity and the power of visual storytelling.
Joan Marie Kelly in an interview at the Asian Art
Biennale 2018 Dhaka Bangladesh
A portrait is more than an image—it’s a connection. Joan Marie Kelly’s paintings reveal the complexity and uniqueness of every subject, creating artworks that carry meaning beyond the moment. Whether honoring identity, preserving a memory, or marking a personal journey, each portrait is a hand-painted collaboration between artist and subject.
Commission a portrait that captures presence, personality, and depth. Joan Marie Kelly’s paintings go beyond likeness—they embody the essence of the individual. Begin your portrait journey today.
The process begins with an initial sitting in the subject’s home, studio, or chosen environment—wherever best reflects their presence. After one or two sessions, Joan marie completes the portrait in her studio, ensuring a piece that is both personal and timeless.
For inquiries or to commission a portrait, please contact Joan directly joanmariekellyzzz@gmail.com. Serious inquiries only.
Exploring the powerful intersection between art and ecology, this category reflects on how painting can bear witness to environmental change. Posts may share stories behind landscape works, eco-conscious practices in the studio, and the role of artists in climate dialogue. Artwork reflecting on the relationship between the warming of the oceans in the Arctic and the rising sea-levels in the
Painting sex workers on Geylang, Singapore Portraiture is more than capturing a likeness. It’s a collaboration between the artist and the subject. This series explores the intimate and narrative-rich process of painting people, from the initial conversation to the final brushstroke.
Drawing on workshops, community projects, and daily sketches, this section showcases how storytelling through images fosters connection, healing, and activism. It’s a space to reflect on process, methods, and the unexpected moments of meaning that arise. Singaporean students painting the portraits of low-wage migrant workers in Singapore.
