Colourful identity emerges from shadowy figures

Somewhere in Nicole Kelly's paintings, which won her $25,000 yesterday as part of the Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship, are people.  Not that they can neccesarily be spotted in her abstract, vibrantly colour canvases.  And that's fine with her.

Kelly, a National Art School student who has been painting for just four years but made the finals of last year's Whiteley scholarship was 'just stunned' that her 10-painting body of work had won.  The prize also gives her a three-month residency at the Cite Internationales des Artsin, Paris.