Caroline Kennedy
Caroline Kennedy is a multidisciplinary Australian artist residing in Melbourne. She has exhibited both in Australia and Europe and has been the recipient of a number of awards, grants and residencies including a residency in Kerala, India; the Cité Internationale Des Arts in Paris and, most recently, in 2020, Kennedy completed an Artist In Residence at AIR Vallauris in the region of Côte D’Azur in France.
Inspired by her extensive travels, Kennedy uses her photography as a source for her practice. The artist is drawn to all things foreign and relishes the challenges which come with experiencing new cultures, landscapes, languages, people and art forms. She researches the places and events that surround her, the everyday situations - both the ordinary and the extraordinary.
Click here for artwork by Caroline Kennedy
Exhibitions at Tacit Art
2019 Blue Note
These snapshots are glimpsed through portals, doorways and windows – from a moving car, a hotel, a train or a plane, the views are fleeting.
Intimate fragments of time. The perspective is often wide, elevated and viewed from a position that maps the terrain from some distance. Foreign landscapes and familiar places are connected through the colour blue. This connectivity between place and space is as relevant to contemporary urban vistas as to traditional landscapes.
Flashes of blue within the vistas - road markings, a façade of a building, sky or sea - captured Kennedy’s attention - and collecting like a bower bird, she foraged for ideas to pinpoint the focus of the composition. Using a monochromatic saturation of blue throughout the series enhances the work’s tonal values; patterns, mass and lines become clearer and more pronounced. It is both the repetition and the differences in the various patterns of landscapes that intrigue her.
The paintings range from old cities to new, and delineate the architecture of structures in a landscape that is devoid of human presence. The almost dreamlike imagery conveys the essence of memory and its ethereal qualities.
This blue collection notes the beauty of nature and the built environment as a sensorial, visual, reductive bite of colour. This body of work is a diaristic, contemplative travel journal, drawn from the artist’s recent time in Morocco, Spain, Greece alongside her affection for Melbourne and Sydney.
Exhibitions
solo
2025 Tidal 2 - Tacit Art, Melbourne
Stolen Flowers - Brunswick Street Gallery, Melbourne
Tidal - Meeniyan Art Gallery, Meeniyan
2022 Journal - Red Gallery, Melbourne
2019 Wandering - Gecko Galleries, Fish Creek
Blue Note - Tacit Art, Melbourne
2016 Chronicle - G1 Gallery Project Space, Melbourne
2008 Storyboard #96 - Linden Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne
2006 Snapshot - Red Gallery, Melbourne
2004 Chronicle 04-05 - Richmond Town Hall, Melborune
2003 underpass #1 - Gertrude Contemporary Art Space, Melbourne
2002 souvenir - Mass Gallery, Melbourne
2001 oeuvres récentes - Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris
1999 Daydream - Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne
Clouding - Linden Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne
1998 Interface - cityartpublicspace, Melbourne
1995 Enclosure - First Draft, Sydney
1993 Enclosure - 41 Gold Street, Melbourne
group
2022 Jacaranda Acquisitive Drawing Award - Grafton Regional Gallery
Jacaranda Acquisitive Drawing Award - Gympie Regional Gallery (touring)
2021 Jacaranda Acquisitive Drawing Award - Glasshouse Port Macquarie (touring)
Jacaranda Acquisitive Drawing Award - Toowoomba Regional Gallery (touring)
Jacaranda Acquisitive Drawing Award - Western Plains Cultural Centre, Dubbo (touring)
2020 Salon des Refuses - S.H Ervin Gallery, Sydney
Jacaranda Acquisitive Drawing Award - Grafton Regional Gallery
Percival Portrait Prize - Perc Tucker Regional Gallery Townsville
2020 AIR Vallauris Residency Exhibition - Chapelle de la Miséricorde, Vallauris
20[2020] - Tacit Art, Melbourne
2019 Friends and Family - Daine Singer Gallery, Melbourne
2017 CCP Kodak Salon - Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne
2013 Salon des Refuses - S.H Ervin Gallery, Sydney
2012 CCP Kodak Salon - Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne
2011 Lorne Sculpture Prize - Lorne
2010 CCP Kodak Salon - Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne
Shilo Project - Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne
2007 10 - Yarra Sculpture Gallery, Melbourne
2003 Crossing the Line - Wiregrass Gallery, Melbourne
Salon des Refuses - S.H Ervin Gallery, Sydney
2002 Terrain - Dantes Upstairs, Melbourne
2001 One for the Ladies - Penthouse & Pavement, Melbourne
2000 Fundere Sculpture Prize - Yarra Sculpture Gallery, Melbourne
Deacons Award - Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne
Serene - Metropolis Gallery, Melbourne
2000 Postcard Show - Linden Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne
1999 Overview - Linden Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne
Landscape - Metropolis Gallery, Melbourne
Salon - Metropolis Gallery, Melbourne
1998 One Hour Photo - 1st Floor, Melbourne
1997 Site and Scale - Yarra Sculpture Gallery, Melbourne
1996 10th Kangaroo Ground Outdoor Sculpture Exhibition - Kangaroo Ground
Spatial Polarities - Stripp, Melbourne
Impromptu - Level 2, Southgate, Melbourne
1995 Unnatural Selection - Grand Central Gallery, Melbourne
Sculpture at Heidelberg - Heidelberg Repatriation Hospital, Melbourne
1995 5 Days 25 Artists - 41 Gold Street, Melbourne
1994 VO=4711 - Gallery Napier, Melbourne Fringe Festival
Gasworks Outdoor Sculpture Exhibition - Gasworks Park, Melbourne
Extension - Ether Ohnetitel, Melbourne
Logos/Word - Arts Victoria, Melbourne
Rod 'n Box - Level 1 Art, Swanston Street, Melbourne (w/ Ben Morieson)
A4 - No Vacancy Gallery, Melbourne
1993 7th Kangaroo Ground Outdoor Sculpture Exhibition - Kangaroo Ground
Little Big Picture Show - Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne
Site One - Roden Street, Melbourne
Small Works 2 - Roar 2 Gallery, Melbourne
1993 Not the Archibald Prize - Fitzroy Town Hall, Melbourne
Collections
City Of Melbourne - Contemporary Art and Heritage Collection - Hart and Sitch Lawyers - Pat Corrigan Trust
Awards
1988 Bachelor of Arts in Fine Art Sculpture - RMIT
2000 Post Grad Dip in Art History - The University of Melbourne
2022 Jacaranda Acquisitive Drawing Award - Finalist
2020 Postcard Show - Finalist
Jacaranda Acquisitive Drawing Award - Finalist
Percival Portrait Prize - Finalist
2019 Doug Moran Portrait Prize - Semi-finalist
2010 Ministry of Transport - Ministry of Arts Tramstop Commission
2004 City of Yarra - Arts Grant
2001 Ian Potter Museum of Art Trust grant
1996 Kangaroo Ground Outdoor Sculpture Awards - Winner
1995 Pat Corrigan Artist Grant - individual award
Pat Corrigan Artist Grant - group award
1994 Pat Corrigan Artist Grant - individual award
Pat Corrigan Artist Grant - group award
1993 Kangaroo Ground Outdoor Sculpture Awards - Winner
Not The Archibald Prize - People's Choice
Residencies
2020 AIR Vallauris - France
2015 Carpe diem Artist Residency, Monsoon Program - Kerala, India
2008 Participating artist, Linden Innovators 2 - Linden Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne
2005 Residency - Barcelona, Spain
2002 Australia-China Council Residency Grant - Beijing, China
2002 Cité Internationale Des Arts - Paris, France
Reviews
2019 Art Almanac - Exhibition Brief (March), https://www.art-almanac.com.au/caroline-kennedy-blue-note/
2016 Art Almanac - Exhibition Brief (February), https://www.art-almanac.com.au/caroline-kennedy-chronicle/
2011 ABC, Art Nation - ABCTV Review, Lorne Sculpture 28/10/11
2007 The Sunday Age, Penny Webb - review of 10 exhibition at Yarra Sculpture Gallery, M, 28/10/07, p32
2002 Mobbypet - collated by Larissa Hjorth, issue 1 and 2
3RRR Roger Taylor - High and Low, Radio interview, 20/2/02
2000 Art Monthly - Victorian notes (July)
1993 The Age, Christopher Heathcote - Challenge To The Prevailing Wisdom
The Herald Sun - pictorial feature (October)
The Age - EG Out There, Shape Up (October)
The Age Good Weekend - Stand Small
Publications
2020 Grafton Regional Gallery - Jacaranda Acquisitive Drawing Award catalogue
Art Edit - magazine Gallery Panel Issue #25, p182
Perc Tucker Regional Gallery - Percival Portrait Prize catalogue
Nice - Matin, Philippe Depetris - Un carré de créatrices à AIR
2011 ABC - Lorne Sculpture Exhibition catalogue, http://www.abc.net.au/arts/stories/s3350836.htm
2007 Erica Sanders - Snapshot catalogue essay
2003 S.H Ervin Gallery - Salon des Refuses catalogue
2000 Bala Starr - Deacons Art Award catalogue essay
1999 Caroline Kennedy - Daydream catalogue essay
Caroline Kennedy - Clouding catalogue essay
1996 Art Monthly - Victorian notes, July issue
Kate Shaw - Spatial Polarities catalogue essay
1995 Erica Sanders - Enclosure catalogue essay
Ken Scarlett - Sculpture at Heidelberg catalogue essay
1994 Rachel Kent - Logos/Word catalogue essay
Rachel Kent - Extension catalogue essay