Kirrily’s creative work explores our relationships between each other and with ourselves, reflecting her conviction that it’s only by knowing ourselves more deeply that we can truly create a better world. She creates a sense of community through her public and engaged projects, including pop-up weaving classes on street corners, collaborations with artists in prisons and detention centres, and work with artists collectives.

Her work is regularly selected for exhibitions and commissions for festivals and events. In 2024 her graduating work Sextillion Ways to Kneel and Kiss the Ground was chosen for the prestigious Emerging Contemporaries exhibition in Canberra, and as a finalist in the Alice Prize. In 2023 she won two Emerging Artist Support Scheme Awards from Craft & Design Canberra and Canberra Spinners and Weavers. Her woven piece Invocation was Highly Commended in the Hornsby Art Prize Emerging Artist Awards in 2022.

While completing her Bachelor of Design her two photographic series Still Life on Newstart and Healing Homo-Economicus earned her an ANU Chancellor’s Commendation in 2018.

In 2020 she won an ANU Vice Chancellor’s Award for The Two Way Project, a collaboration with First Nations women in Canberra which built their skills in traditional and contemporary creative practices including possum skin cloak making, basketry, screen printing and mural art.

Kirrily’s own life is testament to the healing power of art and creativity, having survived a cancer diagnosis and made a radical career change from being a successful academic to artist and maker.