Director/Curator
Owens Art Gallery,
Adjunct Professor
Department of Fine Arts, Mount Allison University
Sackville, New Brunswick
Gemey Kelly is Director/Curator of the Owens Art Gallery, and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Fine Arts, Mount Allison University. For over twenty-five years she has curated exhibitions of work by contemporary Canadian and international artists and has engaged them in symposia, presentations, workshops and residencies, including the Handmade Assembly and the annual Symposium of Performance Art, co-presented with Struts Gallery in Sackville. She supports the work of guest-curators and writers and collaborates with other public galleries in Canada and internationally.
Gemey has also curated and published research on historical art and artists including nationally touring exhibitions on the art of Rockwell Kent and Arthur Lismer. She has published research on New Brunswick artist Jack Humphrey and on women artists such as Ethel Ogden, associated with the Ladies’ College at Mount Allison University. She regularly presents lectures and papers in academic and non-academic forums, and has published articles in The Journal of Canadian Art History and Acadiensis. She was awarded a Research Fellowship at the National Gallery of Canada (2003); has served on numerous Canada Council for the Arts juries, including the Jury to select Canada’s representative at the Venice Biennale (2003); was a Juror for the RBC National Painting Prize for emerging artists (2004); and was the Atlantic Juror for the Sobey Art Award (2008).
Gemey has worked to address issues of audience and participation in the public art museum, and has created mentoring opportunities through the establishment of an Internship Program at the Owens Art Gallery, now in its 18th year.
Gemey Kelly was born in Toronto, Ontario. She was raised by her mother, Lillian June Kelly and her older brother, Gary. She graduated from the University of Toronto with a BA in Honours English and from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax, Nova Scotia with a BFA.
She is married to artist, curator and writer John Murchie. They live in Sackville, New Brunswick.