About Kelly


Kelly Paige Standard - a depictive oil painter - specializes in painting people.  Her hauntingly accessible figures radiate with an honest balance of joy and sadness.  Using strong values and colors, she explores and celebrates the best parts of being human.  Kelly's paintings are often solitary, occasionally piercing, but always mysteriously truthful and radiant.

Born December 1st, 1973 in San Diego, she quickly developed a love for the arts. She gravitated to drawing and painting during her grammar and high school years, during which time she studied with Lela Harty, an oil painter and acclaimed painting teacher. In fact, it was a color theory class she took with Harty before heading off to university that armed her with technique - while college provided the challenge of artful communication. Her discipline and painting ability earned her a Bachelor of Arts (with honors) in 1995. Then only days after graduation, Kelly took a job at Robson Gallery, downtown in San Diego's Gaslamp Quarter, where she absorbed a great deal about gallery business, and spent her days among incredible paintings by John Asaro, Walt Gonske, William Sharer, and the like.

After a couple of years, Kelly entered the video game industry, digitally painting for innovative projects. Still she would come home at night to paint in oils. The very long hours of the industry reinforced her intense work ethic, and made her financially able to transition into a full-time life of fine art. Oil painting has always been Kelly's expression of choice. She exercises regularly, catches some favorite music venues, even a live play now and again, but her dedication to her career-goals leaves her little time for anything else. As she lives and grows in her career, she continues to inspire a surprisingly wide range of people through her work. She has painted numerous portraits, (several of them memorials), and has sold over 250 paintings in that time.

A few quotes from others regarding her work:

"That painting of my sweet son you made last year - that little bit of his soul you captured - is even more beautiful now, and I look at it every day. I can hear his laugh when I see the painting. It is my most prized possession." Scott Dreher, Dreher Law Firm.

"Kelly Paige Standard is a painter and she is every bit as beautiful and full of life as her paintings. Her gift lies in her ability to capture the beauty of a moment, often a very private moment. Her subjects may be exuberant, pensive, even unfocused, but they are never bored. Their very spirit of being alive is expressed to the fullest." Kathleen McMillen, Décor & Style Magazine.

As I was signing in at the front desk, I noticed myself being drawn to a huge, colorful painting of a woman in a flowing dress swinging on a trapeze by Kelly Paige Standard. It had the flavor of a Renoir, but completely fit the Urban Industrial décor… 'Nice', I thought." Mimi Tompson, Vision Magazine.

"I've known for some time that Kelly is a talented artist. What I didn't know until recently, though, is that she is just as impressive a person as she is a painter! Seriously. I so appreciate her understanding and honesty." Cyndy Sullivan, photo journalist.

REPRESENTED BY: Timmons Galleries, Rancho Santa Fe, CA