Kelly Wainwright
Cape Town, South Africa
510-846-2170 (US via WhatsApp) | +27714649864 (South Africa)
kellywilderwainwright@gmail.com | http://www.kellywainwright.com

OBJECTIVE

As a multidisciplinary artist with over two decades of experience in visual arts and creative production, I am currently expanding my practice into more immersive installation and sensory-based experiential work, while continuing to deepen my abstract painting. My creative language is rooted in intuition, play, and disruption—whether on canvas or in space.

I am drawn to what exists outside the lines: scribbles, textures, colors, and compositions that emerge from gut instinct rather than rigid concept. My process invites the unexpected, often dancing between absurdity and intimacy, ritual and chaos. My work lives in the body: the bones, the breath, the gravity, the flop, drop, throw, and float. It’s tactile, improvised, and deeply human. Recent installation project proposals build upon years of visual research, notebooks, photography, and sketches, coalescing into large-scale, participatory experiences.

In my painting practice, I embrace raw canvas, unprimed surfaces, and unvarnished expression, following in the lineage of fearless mark-makers like Richard Serra, Cy Twombly, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Energy, honesty, and originality guide each piece; imperfection is celebrated, texture is explored, and direct contact with the surface keeps the work in dialogue with the world.

This work invites others into the wild and tender spaces—whether through pigment or pink foam. Across media, my goal remains the same: to create moments of aliveness, permission, and reawakening.

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Visual Artist & Conceptualist

ABSTRACT PAINTINGS
Recent Work, Bottled Energy

  • Returned to a new chapter with my paintings, with an emphasis on abstract works using acrylics and mixed media on canvas (often raw) and paper, exploring the intersection of intuition, color, composition, and throwing all caution to the wind.
  • Developed a new series of mostly large-scale paintings, experimenting largely with scribbling & gestural marks, pushing the boundaries of abstraction and play.
  • Currently connecting and aligning with galleries and collectors with a variety of canvases and works on paper in tow.
  • Artist at INK BOX Gallery, Kalk Bay, Cape Town
  • Chardonnay, Constantia, Cape Town, September 2025

ABSTRACT WRITINGS
Recent Work, b. Wilder

  • Wrote a book “by accident”!
  • Blogs and vlogs accumulated over the years including the occasional haiku.
  • While simultaneously dabbling with a screenplay in 2023, about 30 poems “came through”.  They seemed to sync well with the previous writings.
  • The culmination of works is a book of poetry, b. Wilder, & is marinating in the hands of publishers as-we-speak.  
  • Featured alongside her daughter, Eyala Wainwright in the iseeyousee online mag, in a feature called FOR THE LOVE OF SEA & SURF: a mom and daughter story. Kelly wrote about why she raised her kids by the sea, & photographed them obsessively through it, while Eyala wrote about her process of creating a surf doccie, & influenced by her mom’s photography.

INSTALLATION
Kiosk of Curiosity

  • Collaborating with her son, Ezra Wainwright (15), on the Kiosk of Curiosity public art project, designing a bubble-gum pink fantasy streetscape of downtown Cape Town using 3D printing. Curated byMission for Inner City Cape Town.

INSTALLATION
Work in Progress, KinK

  • An accumulation of years of installation visuals in my head come-to-life, involving 5+ different installations all on the same desert farm-site, or similarly juxtaposed context.  
  • The installations involve models, live music, bright fabric, paints, & more.  It is an interactive installation on an old farm, or similarly juxtaposed context.  
  • Currently connecting and aligning with patrons & potential collaborators, most notably pitching COLDPLAY.

INSTALLATION
Work in Progress, Too Much/Not Enough

  • A 5-part immersive installation series exploring relief, addiction, and consumer rituals through oversized candy, pill mounds, pink toilets, and peanut butter chaos.
  • Each space engages visitors with absurdity, scale, and emotional nostalgia—confronting wellness culture through sculptural environments and sound.
  • Currently seeking institutional partnerships and production collaborators. 

MOVEMENT LAB
Currently Offering Workshops & classes, MoFlo

  • A unique class formed after many years of release technique dance & an immersion with Carole Amend in the AIM pilates technique.  
  • The classes & workshops emphasize gravity, relaxation, using our bones, & sinking deeper into our skin. The work marries contemporary dance conditioning with AIM pilates, resulting in a playful, nurturing, & strengthening class.
  • MoFlo is a play on words for Movement & Floorwork. FloMo is integrating the same principles into the visual arts.   
  • Offering her MoFlo Retreat in Baja, Mexico at El Campo Nov. 11-15, 2026

INSTALLATION & PHOTOGRAPHY
Play Jump Eat (2009–2010), Cape Town, South Africa
Visionary, Conceptualist, Art Director, & Producer

  • Conceptualized and produced a large-scale, multimedia photography project in Cape Town, bringing on board 4 local photographers  (Inge Prins, Charley Pollard, Antonia Steyn, Saul Wainwright), featuring over 100 models, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu and acclaimed local-band Freshlyground, receiving global recognition. 
  • The project was featured in Elle Decor, Oprah Magazine, and many other local and international publications. 
  • The project was highly praised for its bold conceptual approach and diverse representation.

EXHIBITIONS & COLLABORATIONS FOR PLAY JUMP EAT:

  • Infecting the City, Cape Town, South Africa, Feb. 2010, chosen artist for prestigious festival in week-long experiential exhibitions around the CBD
  • Exposure Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa, May 2010
  • Misael Art Space, Cape Town, South Africa, June 2010
  • Olympia Cafe, Cape Town, South Africa, 2010
  • Proactive planning initiative for PJE auction with Complete Events, for 300 seats at Groot Constantia, 2010
  • Interview with the Danish Library Association, Copenhagen (via Skype), 2010
  • Repped by The Imaginarium, Cape Town, South Africa (2010)
  • Collab with Amelia John Photography on USA Bed Jump shoots, Madison/Pardeeville, WI area, 2012
  • Presenter at Pecha Kucha, San Francisco, 2012

PRESS & PUBLICATIONS FOR PLAY JUMP EAT:

Magazines:

  • Elle Decor Magazine (Feature on “Play Jump Eat” project), 2/2010
  • Oprah Magazine (South Africa) (Feature on “Play Jump Eat” project), 7/2010
  • Design Indaba Magazine (2-page spread), 2/2010, during the Design Indaba Expo
  • Itch Magazine, Multiple Issues
  • Top Billing (use of images, 2010)
  • City Views Magazine, 9/2009
  • 021 Magazine, 4/2010
  • Golden Arrow German Magazine, First Issue, “2010 South African Fever”
  • British Airways In-flight Magazine (Horizons, 2/2010)

Newspapers:

  • South African Art Times, 2010
  • Daily Voice Newspaper, 2010
  • Sunday Independent Newspaper, 2/2010
  • Mail & Guardian Newspaper, 2/2010
  • Cape Argus Newspaper, Front Page of Tonight Section, 2010
  • London Paper, “The South African”, 2010
  • Die Burger Newspaper (1/2010)

Online News Platforms:

  • OkayAfrica, 2011
  • Cape Town Creatives Interview, 4/2010
  • IOL.co.za, 2010

Blogs:

  • TheFreedom2BMe Blog, 2/2010
  • Crafty Muslimah Blog, 4/2010
  • Aesthetics of Joy Blog, 4/2010
  • Life is Savage Blog, 2/2010
  • ifor1.co.za Blog, 2010
  • Misael Space Show, 2010 (Featured “Best of July” in Cape Town Creatives Blog)
  • Cape Town Daily Photo Blog, 2010
  • Design Indaba Blog, 3/2010
  • Creative Cape Town Blog, 1/2010
  • Vanessa Rafaely, Editor of Cosmopolitan Mag SA, & Editorial Director of Oprah Mag SA, Blog,
    5/2010
  • Sussigkeiten Blog, 6/2010
  • Rachelwcole.com Blog, summer 2010

TV:

E-TV, 2/2010

Published Books:

  • Oxford University Press Southern Africa: Grade 9 Arts & Culture Textbook, Feb. 2010
  • Print: Fashion, Interiors, Art by Simon Clarke, Published by Laurence King, Feb. 2014

ARTS-BASED EVENTS COMPANY
Messy Monkey Arts (2004–2010), San Francisco Bay Area
Founder, Creative Director
Messy Monkey Arts was a creative experiential-events company that specialized in original, out-of-the-box ideas. Their clients ranged from Global Business Network, Eventbrite, & Google, to name a few.  The company curated playful and inspiring experiences, including:

  • Teambuilding: Created dynamic, immersive group experiences combining a playful lens on art (e.g., painting with brooms and toilet plungers) in unique settings (think urban bouncy ball races and throwing paint on rooftops amidst live music), culminating unexpectedly into their own gallery shows and boardroom exhibits, leaving them with a refreshed sense of life and work.
  • CRE8: Curated successful fundraising events involving 8 artists, 8 canvases, and 8 minutes of painting each, culminating in a high-energy art auction and raffle involving a DJ and large crowds.
  • Party in a Box: Created a DIY package of interactive, art-based exercises, including original Messy Monkey games, like “Musical Canvases,” with a recorded soundtrack by the MMA team, produced by Frank Zincavage (of Romeo Void) to guide participants through their creations.
  • Mobile Recess: Co-founded and organized “Mobile Recess,” with “Das Frachtgut” where groups were transported in a trendy bus for spontaneous, “messy-monkey-like” games during lunch breaks.
  • Experiential Events:  Everything from somatic movement workshops, outside-the-box parties (birthday/engagement), travel curation, & photography gigs also sprung out of the platform.  

PRESS & PUBLICATIONS FOR MESSY MONKEY ARTS:

  • Eventbrite Blog, 7/2011
  • Oakland Local (summer 2010)
  • SF Gate, 6/2010
  • The Oakbook, 11/2008
  • Oakland North, 11/2008
  • The 510 Report, 11/2008
  • Biz Bash, 11/2007

SPECIAL EVENTS:

  • Guest Artist/Movement Workshop, Bridges for Music, Langa, Cape Town, RSA, 2020
  • Installation/Photography collaboration with Paige Green Photography, Petaluma, CA, 2008

PAINTINGS 1.0 (2001-2005), San Francisco Bay Area
Past Work, Pink Ladies

  • Fell into a painting career from whimsical mixed-media signs made for Rainbow Orchards, shown at the SF Bay Area Farmer’s Markets.  They were known for their bright energy & sophisticated use of color.  
  • Had a plethora of shows in the area selling a significant number of paintings, eventually pushing the boundaries out of the original works on paper in fun frames to large-scale acrylic paintings on canvas.  The evolution of the paintings abstracted a bit, but stuck with a fruit/veg/flower theme.  
  • Scouted by Rockwell, Sense Fine Art, Woodside, CA, 2002
  • Represented Statewide, Lyssa Morgan Gallery, Florida (2004)
  • Acceptance for Grant Fellowship, Vermont Studio Center Fellowship, Johnson, VT (2003)

 EXHIBITIONS & SPECIAL PROJECTS FOR PAINTINGS 1.0:

  • A substantial number of shows in and around the San Francisco Bay Area, 2001-2005
  • Collective show by resident artists, Lyssa Morgan Gallery, Tampa, Florida, 2004
  • Commissioned Mural, private residence, Cape Town, RSA, January 2003
  • Commissioned Painting, Traci’s Gourmet Granola, Oakland, CA, Winter 2003
  • Commissioned Large-Scale Paintings, Monterrey Market, Berkeley, CA, Spring 2003
  • Guest Artist/Speaker, Island High School, Alameda, CA, Fall 2003
  • Conceptual design for future indoor market, Agricultural Institute of Marin, San Rafael, CA, 2005
  • Commissioned design illustrations for print, Blue Lotus Bags, Santa Cruz, CA, 2005
  • Commissioned Mural/Lettering, Namaste Yoga Studio, Truckee, CA, 2011

EDUCATION

Bachelor’s of Interior Architecture, 

Thesis:  Designed a Movement Therapy Center
University of Oregon, 2000
Minored in Architecture and Art History (with a near-minor in Dance).
National Honors Society

Study Abroad:

  • Danish Institute for Study Abroad (Copenhagen, Denmark, Summer 1999)
  • Fackelbararnas Bibelskola (Sweden, 1992-1993)
  • Ebenhaezer Youth Hostel Internship, Amsterdam, The Netherlands (March, 1993)