Kelly Kondis: Capturing Moments of Beauty

Art Lovers | 11 January 2023

Written by Amelia Pontifex

“I paint mother nature. Our connection to nature is a deep passion of mine.”

Based in the Dandenong Ranges, Victoria, artist Kelly Kondis’s oil landscape pieces reflect the natural environments around her. All her pieces capture beautiful natural moments before they vanish and yet also make you think that you’re watching nature evolve and grow in front of your eyes. Her paintings are her interpretations of the landscape around her, they are augmented by light, natural weather changes, and the textures of the environment around her.

Kelly Kondis

There is a restrained wildness to Kelly’s works. They reflect a quiet moment in nature and inspire a quiet moment in your mind when looking at them, but at the same time, inspire imaginations of what else could make up this scene – as if asking, are we viewing reality or a dream scene?

Aurora | 53 x 53cm, Oil on canvas

Predominantly working in oil and pastel for their abilities to blend, Kelly finds this works for her practice, where she can keep coming back and keep working and developing her pieces. During Melbourne’s lockdown, her husband and children created a studio space for her in their garden. This space allows Kelly to make time for her practice and finds that she can paint with more concentrated and focused attention.

Yarra Valley Spring | 93 x 63cm, Oil on canvas

As well as painting, Kelly manages a short-term rental house, renovates houses and attends to her gardens, as well as juggling her three sons aged 20, 17 and 14. Often travelling between McCrae on the Mornington Peninsula and her home in the Sherbrooke Forest in the Dandenong Ranges, Kelly is often inspired by the fleeting, travelling and ever-changing landscapes of nature around her.

Holbrook Spring | 33 x 33cm, Oil on canvas

For Kelly, being artistic is an outlet that comes very naturally, whether it’s illustrations for books, taking photos or painting. She painted throughout high school and always had it as a hobby, but it wasn’t until the recent lockdowns that she gave her passions serious attention and saw it as something to share with the wider world. She then became connected with her local art scene, found Art Lovers as the ideal place to sell her art online and started sharing her work on social media.

“I feel like I’ve found my community and my people. My work is becoming more and more organic and I too am becoming more flexible in my approaches. I think becoming more comfortable myself and my practice has a lot to do with it.”

Flinders Beach | 76 x 122cm, Oil on canvas

There are a number of inspirations that influence Kelly and her work, for their portrayal of nature but also for their connection to natural elements of light, water and land. Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso, Albert Tucker, JMW Turner, Rembrandt, Jeffery Smart, René Magritte, Edward Hopper and Camille Pissarro all inspire and encourage Kelly’s works. She’s inspired by the way they capture light and movement as well as depth and texture.

“It’s exactly those moments that I want to capture. I do this so that I have a way to hold on to them, before they disappear and vanish.”

To Belgrave | 65 x 85cm, Oil on canvas

Kelly often uses muted tones of cool greens, blues and greys in her works that compliment the temperate climate of the rainforest she lives in and the beach side scenes she often goes to. They harmonise together through her overlaying of colour and adding of texture with her palette knife. These building and rolling layers form the overall sense of her paintings. They also reflect her love for Impressionist art and the overall image being created by the combination of its parts. This idea of developing, rolling and blending just like weather changes and strengths, reflects Kelly’s approach to painting in general and is also reflected in her favourite quote by Picasso, “I begin with an idea and then it becomes something else.”

“Mother nature is unruly and wild, she’s a storm we can’t control. All we can do is embrace it.”

Seas the Day I | 42 x 55cm, Oil on canvas

“Oils and pastels are so natural to me and reflect my subject matter quite well. Once I started painting seriously, I really couldn’t stop. I find that these materials allow me to be the most expressive I can be and create intuitively. It’s an evolving process, with blending materials, that reflect nature’s ever-changing character.”

Backburn | 45 x 55cm, Oil on canvas

Kelly paints intuitively, although she does take photos of nature for reference, she won’t often use them as literal references or guides but perhaps just looks at them for light references.

“I try to capture a moment in time when water and light relate for a fleeting moment.”

Cognizant | 125 x 124cm, Oil on canvas

Through Kelly’s works, we’re immersed in these vast and boundless landscape scenes. We’re both viewing a snapshot moment of time as well as an evolving and changing one that develops before our eyes. This reflection of imagination and freedom in her work, inspires the same in her audience. To think broadly and to travel far.