The Watercolor Artwork Of Mike Killelea

Michael Killelea was born in Brooklyn, NY and currently resides east of there on Long Island where he devides his time between painting and teaching watercolor classes. He is a US Navy veteran and an avid outdoorsman. His work reflects a keen interest in all of the natural world, but especially in the dance of light and shadows along the waterfront. In spite of his prolific efforts, he never seems to have enough time to capture the beauty he see's at every turn. Killelea is an inveterate "plein-air" painter who feels that the watercolor medium is most alive when painting on location. He has traveled extensively, and almost always with paint and brush, recording his impressions of people and places around the world.

Killelea's work and biography have been included along with other selected members of the American Society of Marine Artists, in the Smithsonian Institution's Library for the American Art Museum/National Portrait Gallery and have become the basis for a permanent file on him there. His watercolors have additionally been featured at the BJ Spoke Gallery in Huntington, NY, the Marineart Gallery in Manhattan, and in numerous local exhibits elsewhere on Long Island. They are currently on display at the Castello di Borghese vineyard in Cutchogue, NY, the Christopher Gallery in Stony Brook, NY, and 57 of them were featured in a major solo exhibition at the New York Mercantile Exchange in NYC. A collection of his Huntington (NY) Harbor paintings were selected to comprise the premier show at the Town of Huntington's online art exhibit, sponsored by now Long Island Congressman Steve Israel. His paintings have also been exhibited at the Frye Art Museum in Seattle, WA, the Cummer Art Museum in Jacksonville, FL, the Museum in the US Merchant Marine Academy, Kings Point, NY and in the Vero Beach Art Museum in Florida. Two of his paintings were part of an exhibit in the Capital Building in Washington, DC and became part of the US Navy Museum collection in Washington.

He is a member of the Board of Directors, the Exhibitions Committee and an Artist Member, as well as Chairman of the Regions Committee of the American Society of Marine Artists. He's a graduate of SUNY Farmingdale and has attended Pratt Institute and the School of Visual Arts. His work is in numerous private collections, has been reproduced on book and magazine covers, posters, prints & greeting cards and is featured in two books he wrote and illustrated about Long Island's rural North Fork.

His watercolor paintings were also featured in a major article in the Spring 2005 issue of Watercolor Magazine*. Click to view a copy of the article.
* As published in 'Watercolor' magazine, Spring 2005.
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