Kate Keery is a representational oil painter based in Brooklyn, New York. She grew up in Newburyport with her large family of seven, and moved to New York to pursue her career as an artist in 2022. Her playful, light-flooded scenes are driven by nostalgia; by her longing for the unfiltered wonder of intimate, perhaps even mundane moments that come to define who we are. They also reflect her deep gratitude for the connections we form through shared experiences from the moment we enter the world to when we leave it. Through her work, Keery conveys the simple joy of existence. 

Keery’s work is marked by specific and deeply personal references, drawing from film photos she has taken through recent years, as well as old '90s film found tucked away in her parents' closet. Boldened with colorful hues and bright light, Keery’s pieces bring to life the warmth of these memories and the people who shaped them, while simultaneously amplifying shared human experiences. This allows for anyone who looks at the work, despite having not lived the exact same experience in the exact same place, to empathize with the scenes Keery so delicately breathes life into.

Keery has exhibited throughout the United States, including Massachusetts, New York, New Hampshire, and Chicago. Her work has been featured in Northshore Magazine, Vanity Fair UK, and Fine Art Connoisseur Magazine. In 2024, she was recognized among 30 of Saatchi Art’s “Rising Stars” as one of the top investment-worthy artists. In addition to her artistic practice, she has also illustrated a highly anticipated children’s book in partnership with a Massachusetts-based author. In 2025, she participated in her first Artist Residency in Fornelo, Portugal.

JUNE - AUGUST 2026

In her latest body of work, Keery explores the space where autobiographical memory and collective memory overlap, asking how personal identity is shaped not only by what we remember, but by what we inherit from others. The soft, luminous oil paintings are based on family photos and scenes that took place where the artist spent her earliest years, in a tight knit neighborhood just blocks from the mouth of the Merrimac. As the artist sifts through hundreds of moments captured on camera over the years, meticulously bringing bits and pieces of them to life on canvas, she examines the ways memory is constructed, shared, and transformed over time.

The images depict ordinary moments from the artist and her siblings’ childhood in the 90’s and early 2000’s, a time of distinctly analog and physical media and offline socialization. Cropped compositions of birthday parties, baking, bowling, and typical childhood rituals are filtered through visual manifestations of the American experience. Warm firelight and the direct flash of family photography create scenes that feel at once intimate and elusive. Vivid with the memory of summer humidity and salt air, these paintings transform everyday spaces—backyards, porches, and the New England seaside—into landscapes layered with generations of lived experience.

Central to the work is the question of memory’s reliability. How much of childhood recollection belongs to us alone, and how much has been shaped by family stories, photo albums, and home videos handed down to us? As memories blur and intertwine, the distinction between lived events and inherited narrative becomes increasingly uncertain.