About me

Kerry was born and grew up in rural Perthshire. After moving to the south of England in her twenties, she decided to return to education and follow her life long love of art. Studying firstly at foundation, she then went on follow her passion for drawing and enrolled at Swindon College where a new degree had started entirely dedicated to the practice of drawing.
In 2004 Kerry was awarded a First Class Honours degree in Drawing for Fine Art Practice immediately followed by an MFA at Bath Spa University in 2005.

Exhibitions

Since graduating Kerry has exhibited extensively and been included in several prestigious national exhibitions. In 2006 she was part of the highly respected Jerwood Drawing Prize with her drawing ‘Ghoul School’. This drawing is now in the permanent collection of the Department of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum. In 2007 she was winner of the Grampian Hospitals Arts Trust prize at the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh. She was nominated for the Jerwood Artists’Platform Emerging Artist in 2006 and has shown her work at the RWA annual exhibition in 2006, 2007 and 2008. In 2008, she showed for the first time at the Royal Academy summer exhibition with her drawing ‘Mr and Mrs Wolf’. In winter 2008 she had a large solo show ‘Bring on the dancing bears’ at Rabley Contemporary Drawing in Wiltshire, inspired by circus.

Inspiration

Kerry has a long term fascination for the childlike in all things. Her inspiration is often taken from subjects that provoke a sense of fear or fun or both. Symbols from fairytales are reinvented to become characters in her drawings and are played around with to evoke a particular emotion. Kerry’s work is underpinned by a prolific output of drawings, and will fill sketchbooks quickly to gather information and imagine new possibilities. In winter 2007/8 she spent time at a wolf sanctuary watching and drawing the wolves in their enclosure, and led directly to many of her playful wolf drawings. In 2008, Kerry began the year by making sketches from the collection at Edinburgh’s Museum of Childhood, and was particularly captivated by the old circus toys. She then sought and was kindly given permission to have access behind the scenes of Giffords’circus, a hugely inspiring period of weeks which helped inform her exhibition ‘Bring on the Dancing Bears’.