Alena Kennedy started showing her work in exhibitions in 1999 and has exhibited regularly until the present time. In 2007 she received her degree from Wollongong University in Creative Arts, majoring in painting. Wishing to create art authentic to her nature, and to engage with artists in the Illawarra area, she joined with a group of other like-minded artists to start the Illawarra Association for the Visual Arts (IAVA), and was its inaugural secretary. As she has always had contact with the natural world, through travelling, bushwalking and camping; and currently lives close to the escarpment south of Wollongong, nature informs much of her art work.

Artist’s Statement
I like to explore the world of nature through painting. Supporting my interest in aesthetics and my intuitive feeling of connection with a creative life force is a fascination for pattern: the functional and elegant design of living things; the fractal nature of growth and the processes of randomness and order in the formation of events. In my paintings these aspects combine to create areas of intricate detail which merge into impressionistic spaces of light, dark or luminous colour.