Bernadette Kiely was born in Tipperary in 1958 and studied at the School of Art & Design in Waterford and the Slade School of Fine Art, London. She now lives and works in Thomastown, Co. Kilkenny.
Bernadette Kiely's practice is driven by an intimate connection to the places she paints, and is the product of a process that involves a close examination of her subject through drawing, photographing and experiencing the landscape first-hand at all times of the day and throughout the changing seasons. Her paintings and works on paper expand on the themes of the passage of time and the transient, fragile nature of the physical world evident in her work to date - shifting landscapes cloaked in fog and mist, the flooding of rivers and land and shadows of trees and plantlife.
Bernadette Kiely is a member of Aosdána. She has completed residencies at Ballinglen Arts Foundation, Mayo; Cill Rialaig Artists' Retreat, Kerry; and the Tyrone Guthrie Centre, Monaghan. Recent exhibitions include shows in Tipperary, Wexford and Dublin.
Kiely has been represented by Taylor Galleries since the mid-1990s. Her work is included in private collections in Ireland, the UK, Europe and America, as well as the public collections of AIB, University Hospital, Cork, the OPW / State Art Collection, the National Self Portrait Collection in Limerick and the George Moore Society.