Kelly Greene is a Kanyen’kehà:ka (Mohawk) member of Six Nations of the Grand River Territory, as well as of settler ancestry (Sicilian). She is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice includes painting, sculpture, installation, and photo montage. But her greatest joy besides her children, is working in the garden and walking in nature, always learning from what grows.
Greene has lived in London, Ontario since 1989 and obtained a BFA from the University of Western Ontario after beginning her visual art studies at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, where she was raised.
She has exhibited in Canada and the United States for over thirty years in solo and group exhibits, primarily at the Woodland Cultural Centre in Brantford, Ontario as well as other renowned galleries and museums in Banff, Alberta; Vancouver, B.C.; Montreal, Quebec; Ottawa, Thunder Bay, Toronto, and London, Ontario; Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Howes Cave, New York. Her work is in several public and private collections, and in 2012 and 2015 she was commissioned to complete two permanent outdoor installations at the Woodland Cultural Centre. She has been awarded grants from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council and was honoured to be selected as the inaugural Indigenous Artist in Residence at Western University in 2021.
Her art primarily references topics relating to environmental issues, Haudenosaunee stories and teachings, and injustices to Indigenous People. The ever-alarming condition of our planet has inspired Greene to create works that focus on the small acts of pollination, mostly unseen by many, to remind of this vital importance for all life to survive. Other pieces depict our Mother Earth as human, appealing to our species' egocentricity, hoping empathy will be instilled and respect given so future generations will continue to enjoy all that we have now.