Deborah Kelly is an artist whose works have been shown around Australia, and in the Biennales of Singapore, Sydney, Thessaloniki, TarraWarra and Venice. Kelly's collage-based artworks have been shown in galleries and cinemas around Australia, in Aarhus, London, Cologne, Weimar, Taipei, Tallin, Kiev, Leipzig, Moscow, St Petersburg, Seoul, Paris, Rio, Zagreb, Prague, Brno, Ljubljana, Hong Kong, Singapore, Vienna, Jakarta, Bandung and many US cities.

The animated collage LYING WOMEN was chosen by the Contemporary Collection Benefactors for the Art Gallery of New South Wales collection, and won an acquisition award in the National Works on Paper 2016.

Kelly won the 2019 Dulac Avant Garde Award in the Fotogenia Festival, Mexico City, in 2019. Her work has also been awarded the Cayte Latta LGBTI Award for Visual Arts (2015), the Redlands Art Prize Audience Award (2013), the 2012 Albury Art Prize, the 2009 Fisher’s Ghost Award, the 2009 Screengrab International New Media Art Award, and with boat-people.org, the 2004 WINK Award. Tank Man Tango was shortlisted for the Sadler’s Wells Global Dance Contest, and Hey, Hetero! her collaboration with Tina Fiveash, won the 2001 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras visual art award.

Deborah Kelly's first international solo museum exhibition was held at the Kvindemuseet in Aarhus, Denmark, May-September 2017. From September 2019 her work can be seen in the permanent exhibition of the Wellcome Collection in London, UK.