KELLY CURRY MURAL ARTIST
Master mural creator and artist. I offer my unique vision to create and design murals in all sizes, residential & commercial
Master mural creator and artist. I offer my unique vision to create and design murals in all sizes, residential & commercial
There's much to see here. So, take your time, look around, and learn all there is to know about me. I hope you enjoy my site and take a moment to drop me a line. Don't forget to check out my pottery shop and gallery at Stlawerencepottery.com located in upstate NY. Thank you Kelly Curry
01/17
Many many layers for the clouds in the sky
I was 36 years old when I 1st picked up a paintbrush, that was 22 years ago. I had no idea before that that I could even paint, but I always loved to doodle. I had gone through some life changing events in 1998, including a serious NDE, and through those events i met a older mural artist. That unusal meeting was the beginning of my painting career.
I started out in Buffalo New York ,actually outside of Buffalo in Darien New York, where the famed folk artist Charlie flagg took me under his wing. I spent just a year and a 1/2 under his guidence before I started to receive my own commissions. Shortly after I moved to Florida i joined the Clearwater mural association and started painting in the Florida area. After spending a few years in the Clearwater, St Pete area I moved up to Gainesville where I joined the local mural committee there and began painting in the area counties and north. In 2006 I followed hurricane Katrina to New Orleans and spent the next decade repairing art and murals in some of the damaged houses and began painting murals in the local restaurants in area of the French quarter. I was even a Jackson square artist for a number of years.
Between 2009 and 2012 I started to return home to my roots in upstate New York near the St Lawrence river and began painting murals in 3 of the small river towns located there. In 2012 I started a decade of travel and adventure by traveling to Central America, to Costa Rica and to Nicaragua, where I spent many years in jungles, on beaches and started to paint in hotels and restaurants along the beach properties. I bought property in Nicaragua in 2017 with the idea to build an art gallery and studio in a small art community located outside of Managua in the town of Masaya.
When the pandemic hit in 2019, It changed everything. Travel was difficult and the money became tight as the world started to change where it was traveling and where it was spending its money. I returned home to my roots in upstate New York and I decided that now was the time to buy a gallery. I bought St Lawrence pottery in Clayton New York to begin my gallery, to put in my studio, and I started to learn how to paint on pottery, glaze and fire which I am doing to this day. The river is my home, this is where my roots are, and I am happy to be here now creating one of a kind murals for clients far and wide. While I still travel, I spend more time in my studio.
Now, here I am 22 years later with over 600 murals, interior and exterior, in over 7 States and 2 countries. I feel I have come a long way from the 1st days of carrying a paint can with one brush, and painting a black blob on some crazy surface,( think rocks and delapitated old barns, for free) and now I have the ability to paint huge structures with the aid of scaffolding, high lifts, cherry pickers or window washing equipment. I've lost my sense of fear and have replaced it with a huge feeling of satisfaction. I love what I do, I am so happy to have found that thing, that divine mission, that is mine. I hope to enjoy it for many years to come. There is an undeniable satisfaction in taking an area that is gray or drab and lifeless and adding something that is beautiful and vibrant and lively that helps to lift the soul of people up and give everyone a reason to be proud of where they live. From the poorest barrios of Central America to the cities and neighborhoods of the USA, I have witnessed the change in peoples feelings about thier hometown after creating a work of art just for them. It lightens the spirit, and creates smiles that last decades.
I work with acrylic paint but I mostly work with exterior house paints and when it comes to exterior house paints I mostly work with Benjamin Moore. At this point in my life I've painted over 450 Interior and exterior murals and I can definitely tell you that Benjamin Moore paint looks better, acts better, feels better and holds its colors better and longer and fresher than any other paint I've ever used. When it comes to sitting down and working in front of my canvas I like to use acrylic paints. But I don't stop there. I like to organize and create. I like to work in water colors for my sketches for my clients and some day I could see myself working with oils
Nature. Nature is my inspiration watching animals watching the trees watching the clouds roll by. We take it for granted that those things are easy to paint but they're not. it took me 10 years to look at my own clouds and think that I was doing good and even so I still struggle to make the cloud the way I want to, especially when your a mural artist, the clouds are much bigger. To me that is true creativity, to be such a master painter that you could design the cloud to look 3-D like its moving breathing ....that's the epitome of art. At least that's what I think. So nature is my inspiration, I give it love and I feel it love me back. This brings me to a spiritual life, and so the basis for my imagination comes from my spiritual life which becomes my inspiration for my artistic life. Check out my muralist art works!