Kelly Carmody is a painter based in Waltham, MA, who focuses on portraits and still life.

In her still life, Carmody works in a painterly, immediate approach, and has an interestingly different common theme of dead birds along with the more expected florals, food and vessels. Not a completely unusual theme for artists, particularly going back to Baroque still life that features game birds, but Carmody’s approach is different enough to make you take notice.

In her portraits, she appears to work with more refined brushwork. Her subjects — captured either as bust or full length portraits — have an interesting variety of personality types, though in several, particularly those of young girls, Carmody has brought out their defiant side, as though confronting both the painter and the viewer with an attitude of “I’m who I am, whether you like it or not.”

A number of her portraits (for example, those in ovals, above) are done at small size of roughly 5×7. Carmody calls these “Portraits in Little” and has a separate website devoted to them.

Carmody conducts regular classes in her Waltham studio, as well as occasionally conducting workshops.

Kelly Carmody’s work is currently on display in a solo show at the Sloane Merrill Gallery in Boston titled Kelly Carmody: Evocations that runs until December 9, 2015.

[Via Leo Mancini-Hresko]