A full-time artist since 1998, Francis Kennedy works from a small studio in the countryside, near the 13th century mediaeval town of Athenry in the county of Galway in the west of Ireland.

A passionate love of music, nature and cartoon characters from comics of his childhood, he now creates vibrant paintings reflecting and inspired by his interests.

Francis is an artist because he loves it. He gets a buzz out of painting and he never stops doodling!
Humour plays a large part in Francis' work. He
tries to paint thoughts into his art. It is a real compliment to him when his art becomes a conversation piece or a thought provoker, causing the viewer to wonder.

His influences are Italian master Amedeo Modigliani, American artist Marsha Hammell, Colombian Fernando Botero, Polish artist Tamara de Lempicka and German expressionist August Macke.

Aside from his work un canvas, Francis cuntinues to illustrate for magazines and newspapers and to create original cartoons. For two years, his cartoon creation "The West Side" graced the pages of a weekly newspaper, The Galway Independent and his "PJ the DJ" comic strip about the adventures of a disc-jockey in a rural radio station has also been published.

Music is a passion with Francis, which means that much of his work revolves around musicians and recitals. In fact, to reconstruct a bit of musical history, Francis plays guitar and was a member of "The Works" for three years, "The Cheatin' Hearts", "The Crusaders" and more recently a seven-piece "60s" band known as "Twilight", made up of old "showband heads". He is proud of the fact that he is the second youngest member of the band which crawls out of hibernation every three months or so!

He has provided caricatures of sports stars and politicians for other newspapers such as The Mayo News, The Connaught Telegraph and The Kilkenny People and has illustrated for magazines such as High Ball, Organic Matters, Pet Life, Marketing. Galway Now, Irish Property Buyer, Ireland's Own and Phoenix.

His works hang on the walls of some famous names, like Sharon Corr, Brendan Shine, and the soprano Deirdre Shannon-Gilsenan, as well as in the offices of Coffey Construction and Galway Bay FM. In January 2005 he contributed a painting called "At the Hop" to the auction in the Radisson Hotel to raise funds for victims of the tsunami in Sri Lanka.