ABOUT THE ARTIST

Marina Killery was born in London to artist parents and began painting and drawing at a very

early age. She majored in art and art history throughout her academic career, and attended the

prestigious St Martin’s School of Art in the late 1970’s, where she studied painting, sculpture,

and design.

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Drawn to the sculptural nature of hat design, Killery went on to study millinery, and in the early

80’s started her own business making couture (bespoke) hats for London society, including

Diana, Princess of Wales, who was one of her most loyal clients.

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Her millinery creations made regular appearances in Vogue and other leading magazines, and

in 1988 her work was exhibited in the show, “Fashion and Surrealism” at the Victoria and Albert

Museum in London, and The Fashion Institute of Technology, in New York.

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Killery moved to New York in 1994, and established Marina Killery Couture Hats Inc., selling all

over the United States, London, Paris, and Tokyo, in stores that included Neiman Marcus,

Harrods, and Harvey Nichols.

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With the steady decline in demand for couture millinery, Killery sold the hat business in 1998

and applied her talents to other areas of design, while continuing to draw and paint.

In 2000, she began to focus entirely on painting portraits.

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Killery’s career as a designer and fabricator of couture millinery, and working with her clients

on a one to one basis, has provided her with a unique skill that enhances her portrait painting.

“I have spent my entire creative and professional life looking at faces.​ My work in fashion has given me an edge with my portraits. I understand color and composition, not only from the perspective of a fine art painter, but also as a couturier.I know what will flatter and enhance my sitter, what extraneous elements will add dimension and interest to the painting and say something about my subject’s personality"

Given that people have little time and patience nowadays, to sit for a portrait in the formal sense, Marina Killery works mostly from photographs.​ She is very particular about the clothing choices of her sitters, and spends time with them selecting pieces that will work best in the composition. She styles and directs the subject and takes about 200 photographs.

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“Clothes and color are very important; my style of portraiture is rooted in the traditions of

classical European painting. But the sitter’s attire can add a twist of modernity and an insight

into their personality”

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Although Marina Killery works from photographs, her portraits do not look like photographs.

“I detest photo realism; what is the point? You might as well get a beautiful photograph taken

and forget about the paint! I believe that a painted portrait should have the character of the

process as part of the package”