Kelly Reedy has over 20 years experience working in Singapore as an artist, art educator and more recently as an art therapist. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Wisconsin, USA, a Master of Education from Hunter College, USA and a Master of Art Therapy from LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore & Goldsmiths, University of London. She is a qualified art psychotherapist, MA AThR, registered with ANZACATA, Creative Arts Therapies in Australia, New Zealand and Asia. Kelly has long been aware of the power of visual images to move, inspire and heal.  She strongly believes engaging in art, by either making or appreciating works of art, can foster a greater sense of self-awareness and act as a means of self-care. 

​

For over 12 years, her studio in Wessex Estate has served as a base for her own art practice as a mixed-media painter and printmaker. She has facilitated workshops for schools and museums, as well as trained teachers at the National Institute of Education and the NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore. In 2015 she began to explore the therapeutic uses of art making by pursuing a MA Art Therapy degree, opening up new possibilities for her to connect to others though the creative process. Her clinical experiences in art therapy include interning in a nursing home for the long-term mentally ill and with elders experiencing dementia and Alzheimer’s. She worked in trauma-focused care at a residential home for female youth-at-risk and with children who had experienced a natural disaster. Through innovative Therapeutic Imagination programmes, she created nature-based parent and child bonding workshops for the National Museum Singapore, as well as partnered with STAEDTLER to design a set of therapeutic coloring sheets for World Kids Colouring Day 2018. Kelly is currently a part-time lecturer in the MA in Art Therapy Programme at LASALLE College of the Arts. In her own studio-based practice, she works as an art therapist with private clients and small groups. 

​

Kelly’s professional areas of interest include exploring holistic therapeutic approaches in relation to art making, including mindfulness practice, nature therapy, ritual art traditions, as well as Jungian Sandplay therapy. She has presented her research on the therapeutic uses of natural materials in art making, as well as cultivating self-compassion in care-givers through art therapy in workshops at several international conferences: the Expressive Therapies Summits in Los Angeles, 2018 and New York City, 2016, “Constructing Balinese Baskets for Communication, Community and Harmony” and at the Nourish Arts Therapy & Wellbeing Conference 2018, in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, “Cultivating Self-Compassion in Caregivers”. In 2017 she was invited to give a guest lecture at the National Museum Singapore, speaking on “Therapeutic Imagination: The Healing Aspects of Asian Ritual Art-Making Practices”.