Kelly McCallum is a London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 based Canadian artist

Artist

An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...

 specializing in taxidermy

Taxidermy

Taxidermy is the act of mounting or reproducing dead animals for display or for other sources of study. Taxidermy can be done on all vertebrate species of animals, including mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, and amphibians...

, metalsmith and jewelry making.

Early Life and Education

At a very young age Kelly used to go on school trips to Norman Elder

Norman Elder

Norman Sam Elder , explorer, exotic animal owner, writer, artist, Olympic equestrian, was one of Toronto's eccentrics...

’s house and view his collection. It was there that she began to appreciate the art of taxidermy

Taxidermy

Taxidermy is the act of mounting or reproducing dead animals for display or for other sources of study. Taxidermy can be done on all vertebrate species of animals, including mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, and amphibians...

. Beginning her own art studies with a Bachelor of Fine Arts

Bachelor of Fine Arts

In the United States and Canada, the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, usually abbreviated BFA, is the standard undergraduate degree for students seeking a professional education in the visual or performing arts. In some countries such a degree is called a Bachelor of Creative Arts or BCA...

 from Rhode Island School of Design

Rhode Island School of Design

Rhode Island School of Design is a fine arts and design college located in Providence, Rhode Island. It was founded in 1877. Located at the base of College Hill, the RISD campus is contiguous with the Brown University campus. The two institutions share social, academic, and community resources and...

 (RISD) culminating in 2001, she moved on to study Animal Science

Animal science

Animal Science is described as "studying the biology of animals that are under the control of mankind". Historically, the animals studied were farm animals, including livestock and horses, but courses available now look at a far broader area to include companion animals, for example dogs, cats and...

, Pre Veterinarian at the University of Massachusetts

University of Massachusetts

This article relates to the statewide university system. For the flagship campus often referred to as "UMass", see University of Massachusetts Amherst...

 for a year. Immediately following Kelly went back to RISD for additional studio work in Metalsmith. From 2004-2006 Kelly studied at the Royal College of Art

Royal College of Art

The Royal College of Art is an art school located in London, United Kingdom. It is the world’s only wholly postgraduate university of art and design, offering the degrees of Master of Arts , Master of Philosophy and Doctor of Philosophy...

 in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 to earn her Master of Arts

Master of Arts (postgraduate)

A Master of Arts from the Latin Magister Artium, is a type of Master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The M.A. is usually contrasted with the M.S. or M.Sc. degrees...

 Degree.

Inspiration

Starting at a young age Kelly found beauty in almost anything. She enjoys natural history, which is what prompted her degree in science. Her studies at RISD began in photography, a subject she has always admired. She enjoys works by Eva Hesse

Eva Hesse

Eva Hesse , was a German-born American sculptor, known for her pioneering work in materials such as latex, fiberglass, and plastics. -Early life:Hesse was born into a family of observant Jews in Hamburg, Germany...

, Louise Bourgeois

Louise Bourgeois

Louise Joséphine Bourgeois , was a renowned French-American artist and sculptor, best known for her contributions to both modern and contemporary art, and for her spider structures, titled Maman, which resulted in her being nicknamed the Spiderwoman...

, Magdalena Abakanowicz

Magdalena Abakanowicz

Magdalena Abakanowicz is a Polish sculptor. She is notable for her use of textiles as a sculptural medium. She was a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznań, Poland from 1965 to 1990 and a visiting professor at University of California, Los Angeles in 1984...

, Mark Ryden

Mark Ryden

-Early life:Ryden is the son of Barbara and Keith Ryden, born in Medford, Oregon but raised in Southern California. He has two sisters and two brothers, one a fellow artist named Keyth Ryden....

, Frida Kahlo

Frida Kahlo

Frida Kahlo de Rivera was a Mexican painter, born in Coyoacán, and perhaps best known for her self-portraits....

, David Wojnarowicz

David Wojnarowicz

David Wojnarowicz was a painter, photographer, writer, filmmaker, performance artist, and activist who was prominent in the New York City art world of the 1980s.-Biography:...

, Annette Messager

Annette Messager

Annette Messager is a French artist who was born in 1943. She is known mainly for her installation work which often incorporates photographs, prints and drawings, and various materials. Messager has exhibited and published her work extensively...

, Joel-Peter Witkin

Joel-Peter Witkin

Joel-Peter Witkin is an American photographer who lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico. His work often deals with such themes as death, corpses , and various outsiders such as dwarfs, transsexuals, hermaphrodites, and physically deformed people...

 and Simon Ward. Comparisons may also be drawn between the Victorian taxidermy works left by Walter Potter

Walter Potter

Walter Potter was an English taxidermist noted for his anthropomorphic dioramas featuring mounted animals mimicking human life, which he displayed at his museum in Bramber, Sussex, England...

 and Kelly's own whimsical creations.

Career

Aside from the full-scale use of Victorian taxidermy, Kelly has made numerous wearable pieces of art in her jewelry. Her attention to detail is impeccable and ultimately the hands-on aspect of creating is what prompted her to go back to RISD and study metalsmithing. Despite her multi-layered CV, the use of taxidermy single handedly puts her in a category with several very popular contemporary artists such as Polly Morgan

Polly Morgan

Polly Morgan is a London based British artist who uses taxidermy to create works of art.-Career:Morgan did not plan an art career; she considered becoming an actress after leaving school, but went to university instead. Morgan graduated from Queen Mary, University of London, in English Literature...

, Damien Hirst

Damien Hirst

Damien Steven Hirst is an English artist, entrepreneur and art collector. He is the most prominent member of the group known as the Young British Artists , who dominated the art scene in Britain during the 1990s. He is internationally renowned, and is reportedly Britain's richest living artist,...

, and Kate McGwire. Her inspiration comes from the stories of how things decay or are preserved. It is this interest in the controversial line between life and death that links Kelly to artists like Tim Noble and Sue Webster

Tim Noble and Sue Webster

Timothy "Tim" Noble and Susan "Sue" Webster , are two British artists who work as a collaborative duo, and are associated with the post-YBA generation of artists.-Early lives and careers:...

 and brothers Jake and Dinos Chapman

Jake and Dinos Chapman

Iakovos "Jake" Chapman and Konstantinos "Dinos" Chapman are English visual artists, often known as the Chapman Brothers, who work together as a collaborative sibling duo...

. In a way this has made it difficult to categorize her work because although it uses Victorian taxidermy and goldsmithing, it is also juxtaposing and celebrating the interplay or preservation and disintegration.

She has been included in numerous group and solo exhibitions across the globe. Places include: Canada, the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, Korea

Korea

Korea ) is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...

, the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

, and Poland

Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

, and has been displayed at the Victoria and Albert Museum

Victoria and Albert Museum

The Victoria and Albert Museum , set in the Brompton district of The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England, is the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 4.5 million objects...

 in London, Goldsmiths Hall, Sotheby's

Sotheby's

Sotheby's is the world's fourth oldest auction house in continuous operation.-History:The oldest auction house in operation is the Stockholms Auktionsverk founded in 1674, the second oldest is Göteborgs Auktionsverk founded in 1681 and third oldest being founded in 1731, all Swedish...

, Selfridges

Selfridges

Selfridges, AKA Selfridges & Co, is a chain of high end department stores in the United Kingdom. It was founded by Harry Gordon Selfridge. The flagship store in London's Oxford Street is the second largest shop in the UK and was opened on 15 March 1909.More recently, three other stores have been...

and Liberty's. Her work is also held in a number of private collections worldwide. McCallum also headlined the exhibition "Telling Tales" at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 2009.