Kelly's research focuses on how women artists from Europe, North Africa and the Middle East have responded to Orientalism over the longue durée. Her work creates a bridge between 19th- and 20th-century European Orientalist art; global women's art and transnational feminist theory; contemporary art from the Middle East and North Africa; and the role of fine art galleries in societies. 


"In my work I use a Transnational Feminist methodology, which allows me to explore how individual women artist and works of art are responding to Orientalism through the lens of their local and translocal experiences. Yet, simultaneously, as I move in and through the local and translocal, the methodology also permits me to show how certain women artists can reach beyond their borders to a third or transnational space where they might speak in harmony with women globally. By 'borders' I mean geographical borders, but also borders of ethnicity, cultural heritage, gender and religion as well as borders of time."

- Mary Kelly, Speaking at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Jan. 2024.                 


Research Project:
Project 1: French Women Orientalist Artists, 1861-1956: Cross-Cultural Contacts and Depictions of Difference. 
As a part of this project, Kelly authored the first full-length book (Routledge New York/London: 2021) dedicated to French women Orientalist artists. She gathered primary documentation relating to 72 women artists whose works of art can be placed in the canon of French Orientalism between 1861 and 1956. These women were professional artists who practiced in France and the Maghreb region of North Africa particularly in Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco. On bringing these artists together for the first time and presenting close contextual analyses of works of art, attention is given to artists' cross-cultural interactions with painted/sculpted representations of the Maghreb. Kelly places emphases on the gendered gaze, which entails a discussion on women's painted perspectives of and contacts with Muslim women as well as various Maghrebi cultures and land--all the while remaining mindful of the subject position of the French artist and the problematic issues which can arise when discussing European-made 'ethnographic' scenes. Moreover, executed between 1861 and 1956, the works of art presented in Kelly's research show influences of Modernism; therefore, she also pays close attention to progressive Realism and Naturalism in art and the Orientalist shift into Modernist subject matter and form. Through her research into French women Orientalists Kelly engages with important discussions on the crossing view of the historical female other with the cultural other, artistic hybridity and influence in art as well as the postcolonial response to French activities in colonial Algeria and the protectorates of Tunisia and Morocco. On giving focus to women's art and the impact of cross-cultural interchanges, Kelly's research rethinks Orientalism in French art.

Project 2: Transcultural Orientalism and Art: Contemporary Women Artists from the Middle East and North Africa Unearthing New Meanings. 
In this project Kelly is rethinking the term 'Orientalism'. The book (De Gruyter Berlin/Boston: 2026) looks beyond the purely European canon of historical Orientalist art objects to explore artistic responses to Orientalism by contemporary women artists from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Kelly's approach creates new meanings for Orientalism and it further contextualises art objects as being an important part of an ongoing, reciprocal socio-cultural dialogue between the global north and south. This will be the first book to conduct a comprehensive revision of Orientalism in the History of Art 1834-2024 through the lens of global histories of art, transnational feminism and transcultural theory. Kelly contends that this understated dialogue in art and visual culture can be harnessed and used in innovative ways to generate a positive and progressive exchange of ideas between Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. 

Project 3: Barbara Wright Library of Nineteenth-Century Textual  and Visual Studies, Boole Library, University College Cork. Collaborator: C. Ó Doibhlin, Head of Research Collections, UCC.
Barbara Wright (1935-2019), Emerita Professor TCD and Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur is the leading scholar on the French Orientalist artist E. Fromentin (1820-76). In 2019, Professor Wright donated her extensive Orientalist library holdings to UCC. Kelly is working with C. Ó Doibhlin on cataloguing and launching the collection.

Read: Mary Kelly, Crónán Ó Doibhlin, Barbara Wright, 'Barbara Wright Library of Nineteenth-Century Textual and Visual Studies, Boole Library, University College Cork, Ireland: Legacy, the Collection and Impact'. Journal de L'Académie des Belles-Lettres, Sciences et Arts de La Rochelle, XXIII (2021): 37-51. To celebrate this collection at UCC, in 2026 Dr Kelly will launch a new undergraduate module at UCC based on Orientalism and the Barbara Wright Collection. 

Reviews of French Women Orientalist Artists, 1861-1956: Cross-Cultural Contacts and Depictions of Difference. 

"Mary Kelly's book, spanning the heyday of nineteenth-century Orientalism into twentieth-century Modernism, is a timely and innovative contribution to orientalist art studies. The importance of Kelly's highly original work in broadening the canon of French women Orientalists cannot be overstated. She has expanded and redefined the field through this ambitious account of women artists. From now on, it should not be possible to marginalize women's contribution in any study of French Orientalism."　
- Mary Roberts, Professor of Art History and Nineteenth-Century Studies, University of Sydney.


"For too long, progressive debates on French Orientalism have been driven by the eroticized harem and slave market scenes painted by Western male artists in the nineteenth century. Mary Kelly's new book, a brilliant and welcome intervention into these debates, highlights the work of dozens of lesser-known French women artists who functioned professionally as Orientalists in the modern era, countering the sexualized stereotype of Muslim women with images that focused instead on their cultural and economic contributions to contemporary life. Through compelling cross-cultural analyses, Kelly poses nuanced questions about the gendered fantasies and realities of Orientalism, and her book reveals the multiple ways in which gender and the female gaze can complicate post-colonialism's unitary notion of a 'Western' way of seeing the 'Orient.'"
- Norma Broude, Professor Emerita of Art History, American University


"French Women Orientalist Artists makes a powerful connection between the depiction of female subjects in the 'East' and the life of those in the 'West'...The book contributes a wealth of new biographical data and presents close analyses of hitherto overlooked works. This new material undergirds Mary Kelly's insistence that gender must be understood as a key variable inflecting subject position of the Orientalist painter. Impressively rich case studies of little-known artists such as Marie Élisabeth Aimée Lucas-Robiquet and Ketty Carré demand a revision of the canon of Orientalist work both before and after the advent of Modernism. More importantly, however, to look closely at this work, as Kelly does, is to revise our conception of modern painting as a whole."
- Tim Barringer, Paul Mellon Professor and Chair of the Department of the History of Art, Yale University. 

2025    Enterprise Ireland Horizon Europe - European Research Council Awards Proposal Preparation Support, Enterprise Ireland.

2025    EU COST ACTION Innovation Network Travel Funding & Elected to Management Committee: CA24125 - Cultural Heritage in Crisis. Transdisciplinary Assessment of Legal and Regulatory Frameworks (CRICULT), EU COST Association.

2024    Commission on Women and Gender Studies in History of Science, Technology and Medicine, DHST (IUHPST). ICHST 2025 (New Zealand) Conference Travel Grant. Commission on Women and Gender Studies in History of Science, Technology and Medicine, DHST (IUHPST).

2024    Academic Returners Scheme, University College Cork.

2022    Supervisor: Government of Ireland Postgraduate Scholarship. PhD Student Giulia Priori, Irish Research Council.

2021    Symposium Funded by the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland, Irish Museum of Modern Art.

2014    Language Fellowship, Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris.

2013    2 x IRC New Foundations Awards, 2013-14, Irish Research Council.

2012    IRC New Foundations Award, 2012-13, Irish Research Council.

2010    Fulbright Award for Research in the Humanities (Yale University), Irish Fulbright Commission.

2010    Irish Research Council Scholarship, Irish Research Council.

2008    UL Scholar (awarded 2008-11, accepted 2008-10), University of Limerick.

Dr. Kelly is the Programme Director, MA in Global Gallery Studies [Online], UCC. See https://www.ucc.ie/en/cke82/ 

&

Third-Arts Convenor, BA Degree Programme, History of Art, UCC 2016-2022

Second-Arts Convenor, BA Degree Programme, History of Art, UCC 2022-present 

Dr. Kelly's teaching interests extend across the modern and contemporary periods, they include: 

• Global women's art, identities, societies and gender theories.
• Interdisciplinary approaches to European Orientalism, representation and visual culture since 1800. 
• Post-1945 decolonisation and postcolonial theories and their impact on artists' identities, art making and art history and theories. 
• The rise of modern and contemporary art from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) in art history since 2000.
• The (re)presenting of MENA identities and cultural heritages through art and the gallery space. 
• 21st-century globalisation and the decentring of the (European and American) art canon.
• Traditional histories of the museum & gallery space, the development of 'the white cube space' and the 'new museum'. 
• Galleries in a global context and the multiple roles of galleries in our societies.   

Kelly is strong proponent of research-led and interdisciplinary teaching, moreover she uses blended learning approaches including Object Based Teaching and Learning, and Online and Technology Enhanced Learning.

Modules Coordinated and Taught 100%. 

• HA2011 From Modernism to Postmodernism
• HA2017/24 Legible/Visible: Art and Interpretation
• HA3028/31 Global Artistic Interventions
• HA3029 Art & Gender Identities
• HA6029 Project-Led Gallery Internship [Online]
• HA6031 Global Galleries Fieldwork [Online]
• HA6026 Global Galleries and Art: History, Theory & Practice [Online] (Coordinator and co-taught, 50%)

 
Modules Co-Taught 

• HA1001 History of Art
• HA3013 Special Supervised Research Project (Coordinator and co-taught), 2016-2021. 
• HA6028 Research Prooject in Global Gallery Studies [Online] (Coordinator and co-taught).

PhD Students 
Giulia Priori, IRC Funded.
Supervisor: Dr Mary Kelly.
Co-Supervisors: Professor Jools Gilson (25%) and Dr. Till Weingärtner (25%). 
Project: 'Rita Duffy (b. 1959) and Miyako Ishiuchi (b. 1947): A transnational study of the heritagisation of traditional textile industries in Ireland and Japan and their use in contemporary art practices, 2000-2020.'

Giulia Luciani,
Supervisor: Dr Mary Kelly. 
Advisor: Dr Flavio Boggi. 
Project: 'French Women Orientalists, 1899-1929: Gendering Artistic Societies in the Cities of Paris, Algiers, Tunis and Rabat.'

Lucy Dubert
Co-Supervisor: Dr Mary Kelly (25%). 
Supervisor: Dr Carlos Garrido Castellano.  
Project: 'Cuban Art's Body Politics: Bodies, Spaces and Places'

MPhil Student 
Catherine Campbell, 2021-2023. 
Supervisor: Dr Mary Kelly 
Co-supervisor: Dr Simon Knowles 
Project: 'Henriette Browne (1829-1901) and Marcello (1836-1879): Challenging Artistic Conventions through Orientalist Representations of the Male Body' 

MRes Student 
Dr Barney Whelan, 
Supervisor: Dr Mary Kelly
Advisor: Dr Flavio Boggi
Project: 'Landscape as Gallery, Nature as Curator: Biomineralisation, Biofilms and Microbiolites in Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty (1970)'

Recent MPhil Postgraduates

2014    Mona Hamed, Trinity College Dublin

Recent MA Postgraduates

2022    Phoebe Milne, University College Cork,

2022    Marie Lynch, University College Cork,         

2021    Fiona Carey, University College Cork           

2021    Giulia Luciani, University College Cork

2021    Kelly Udall, University College Cork

2017    Ellen Byrne, University College Cork            

2017    Máire Domhnat McKeown, University College Cork           

2017    Joris Bakhuis, University College Cork        

2013    Anna Shaver, University of Limerick             

2013    Malihe Zafarnezhad, University of Limerick