Kelly Kirkpatrick: Cute Feelings

Ruth Upjohn Gallery, Women’s Art Association of Canada

Kelly Kirkpatrick, Defeated Rainbow, 2025, Acrylic on Canvas, 24″ x 36″

Cute Feelings
A series of new paintings by Kelly Kirkpatrick

November 5–11, 2025
Opening Reception: November 7, 4–7pm
Ruth Upjohn Gallery, Women’s Art Association of Canada, Toronto

Cute Feelings is a series of paintings I began in early 2025 while musing on the themes of feminism, motherhood, and a societal inability to accept emotions. Working with fluorescents and bright acrylic paint on canvas, the work depicts common symbols found in popular culture such as hearts, stars, clouds, lighting bolts and rainbows. These symbols are normally considered to be imagery associated with positive feelings. These pieces draw on my personal experiences of being told “You’re cute when you’re mad” and “You’re so pretty when you cry” among others which inspired me to create a body of work showing a series of emoji-like emotional characters using vibrant and vivid colours that are humanized with negative emotions, creating a juxtaposition for the viewer.

Kelly Kirkpatrick, It’s Over!, 2025, Acrylic on canvas, 40″ x 64″

About the Artist

Kelly Kirkpatrick is a Toronto-based multi-media artist whose practice explores bold imagery, typography, and experimental applications of diverse media on paper and canvas. She graduated with honours from the Ontario College of Art and Design in 2002 (AOCAD Diploma) and has since balanced a successful commercial career–with award-winning work published internationally in Canada, the US and the UK–with an expanding fine art practice. In 2022, Kirkpatrick joined the Women’s Art Association of Canada (WAAC), where her debut piece for the exhibition, Awakening, marked the beginning of a series on Motherhood. During From Nature to Abstraction, she developed an innovative technique applying ink and acrylic with flowers in place of brushes, opening new directions in her exploration of process and materiality. She has consistently exhibited with WAAC at the Dignam Gallery in Toronto and presented her first solo exhibition, Did Someone Say Flowers? at the Ruth Upjohn Gallery in June 2023. Cute Feelings exhibition runs from November 5–11, 2025, at the Ruth Upjohn Gallery, 23 Prince Arthur Avenue, Toronto.

www.kellykirkpatrick.com
Instagram @artbykellyk

Kelly Kirkpatrick, I Hurt Myself, 2025, Acrylic on canvas, 64″ x 54″

Ruth Upjohn Gallery in the Women’s Art Association of Canada

Since 1887 The Women’s Art Association of Canada is a diverse and inclusive non-profit art hub offering exhibition, education and volunteer opportunities for men and women with a passion for the arts. Two historic gallery spaces on the main floor of the heritage building at 23 Prince Arthur Avenue in Toronto are open to the public.

We wish to acknowledge this land on which the Women’s Art Association of Canada operates. For thousands of years, it has been the traditional land of the Huron-Wendat, the Seneca, and the Mississaugas of the Credit. Today, this meeting place is still the home to the many Indigenous people from across Turtle Island and we are grateful to have the opportunity to work on this land.

Women’s Art Association of Canada
23 Prince Arthur Avenue
Toronto, ON M5R 1B2
womensartofcanada.ca
waac@womensartofcanada.ca
416-922-2060

Accessibility: The Women’s Art Association of Canada is regretfully not wheelchair accessible, there are steps to enter. For more information, visit womensartofcanada.ca.