Luke Kennedy
Luke Kennedy grew up at Sydney’s Maroubra Beach. Spending much of his youth surfing, he eventually became a competitive surfer and lifeguard into his mid-20’s. After attending ACU for a Bachelor of Art and Visual Design, he went on to study Bachelor of Fine Art in Painting at the National Art School, graduating in 2020.
During this period Kennedy was heavily embedded in the culture of street art and graffiti, developing an aesthetic that continues to inform his practice today. Kennedy cites his influences within the fields of, expressionism, colour-field painting, and impressionism – particularly the impressionist use of colour and light. Within the contemporary art world, he sees his cohort as the provisional painters and new casualists, who are both proponents of chance and randomness. Kennedy states,
‘There is always chance involved, finding something new in mistakes and accidents. My work is an emotional response conceived through colour abstraction.’
The one constant Kennedy returns to, over and again, however, is the ocean and nature at large. His first solo exhibition, Palace Rose Garden, is a testament to this, the title alluding to the ocean as his temple.
Kennedy received a Bachelor of Fine Arts at National Art School 2020 with The Mark Henry Cain Memorial Scholarship. He has exhibited in group exhibitions in Australia. He was also awarded the Waverley Mayor’s Prize 2021, Mixed Media Waverley Prize in 2019 and the Oil Painting Waverley Prize in 2020.