My Biography

            Kelsey was born in Austin, Texas, where she currently resides. In addition to growing up in a city that values art, Kelsey came from a family of artists, so she had much exposure to the art world. She has worked at her family’s jewelry store shadowing her father, a jeweler and artist, for the past four years, which has fueled her interest in custom design, three dimensionality and sculpture.  She currently attends St. Edward’s University where she will graduate with a BA in Art in May of 2012. Her main focus right now is ceramic sculpture, though she is also very interested in oil painting and pastel drawing

Points of Balance

     I have a senior art exhibition coming up in early May of 2012, entitled Points of Balance. I've been working on my pieces for this show already, so I may as well share my proposal:
     First of all, the location of my pieces will be inside a glass case right outside the St. Edward's art gallery. I'll put in three shelves on which I'll display various sea themed sculptures. For now, I think each of the three shelves will be divided according to the levels of the ocean. Like, the top shelf will be the surface where I'll have some suspended sea gulls, a great white shark plunging out of the water, etc. The middle shelf will be where all of the normal critters are found, like an octopus, etc. And the bottom shelf, my favorite, will be home to the deep dark ocean floor dwellers like an angler fish.
     The purpose here, and with all of my art, is to evoke excitement from my audience. I don't want to depress anyone with this piece, and I don't see how I could... unless maybe a shark attack victim was to view my work, in which case I understand. Furthermore, the ocean has always been a mysterious and wonderful place for me. So this piece will have a lot to do with nostalgia, though I'm still in the process of putting all this into (better) words for my artists statement, which will be posted here when I finish.
     I'm really excited about this piece, but I have tons to do yet. I only have four sculptures made (octopus, angler fish, school of fish, and great white shark), but I want around 10. Of those four though, only two are painted. I also want to experiment with light in the bottom dwelling creatures, so I'll need help there. And lastly, I need to paint backdrops on canvas for each of the three levels/shelves. Wow.

Acrylic on Terra Cotta Clay, 2011

Self-Portrait

Hokay so, here's my "finished" self-portrait! I'm really pleased with it, but I'm sure I'll go back and rework it one day. For now though, I might go crazy if I keep looking at it. There's something very introspective about working on a self-portrait, more so than any other subject matter. 

I used a photo as a reference to complete this. As you can see below, I have a skewed vision of myself when I work with only a mirror. This self-portrait was done a week prior to the painting above. Maybe the hair resembles mine? Everything else belongs to another person. 

Below is an image of the progress of this painting. I really struggled with the eyes at first, it's amazing what those small details, like shadow, can do. 

 

I'm working on a self-portrait right now. I will post a picture when I'm finished. In doing this I realize how interested in color I am--especially unnatural colors like violets.
So then, here's a little inspiration from a contemporary British painter:

Jenny Saville's unnatural color use and painterly quality is something that I'd like to mimic. This painting is entitled The Transvestite, which is hard not to love. The emphasis on her anatomy is crucial. Furthermore, I would like to work with a curvier model in some of my next figure paintings/drawings.

Another from Jenny Saville entitled #4, from the Closed Contact series. This is such a unique figural representation! Yet it is a natural rendering; we can easily recognize what is happening to her body here. More than her body though I am attracted to this woman's face. I would love to use glass against models' faces to create really expressive paintings. However, I would use brighter and more unnatural colors.

Boo

I'm such a halloween nut. I love dressing up; I love scaring people; I love candy.

So, today I went halloween decor shopping with the intention of turning my apartment into the house of torment. While at some store I found a canvas with typical pumpkins and ghosts artificially painted on top and I got another artistic vision.    (!!!)
Basically, I want to paint and sculpt my own decorations for each of the best holidays (halloween, Christmas, Easter, 4th of July, etc). I'm sick of the commercial symbols for these awesome holidays so I would make some really unique interpretations.

I decided to look online and I came across www.halloweenartists.com, where I fell in love with Ron Byrum and Karen Harper. These artists have made a career based solely on halloween art. Now, I'm really just looking to save a little $$ on halloween decor, but how cool are these people right?

by Karen Harper