Kelley was born in Baton Rouge, LA. Her MFA is from University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Kelley’s work has been exhibited widely, including solo museum exhibits at Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, Bradbury Art Museum, Masur Museum of Art, Micholson Museum of Art, and the LSU Museum. In 2024, Kelley was nominated for a Joan Mitchell Fellowship, and her application made it to the final round. She has been awarded numerous grants for research and travel, including a 2023 $10,000 Emerging Research Faculty Grant to study and travel in Japan.
Kelley authored a book featuring her artwork, Accalia and the Swamp Monster, published by LSU Press in 2014. She was awarded a $34,000 ATLAS (Awards to LA Artists and Scholars) grant for the project. Kelley has been awarded recent one-month fully funded residencies at the Blue Mountain Center, Ucross, and Jentel.
Permanent acquisitions of her work include: Hall Art Foundation, Tyler Museum of Art, Hilliard Museum of Art, the Alexandria Museum of Art, Louisiana Arts and Science Museum and LSU Museum of Art, and Eugenia Summer Gallery. Kelley’s work is represented by Spillman Blackwell Gallery in New Orleans, Andrew Durham Gallery in Houston, and she has been an artist member at Baton Rouge Gallery Center for Contemporary Art for 25 years. She is also part of a three-woman collective, Luminous Lookout. They’ve exhibited in Texas, South Carolina, Arkansas, and Louisiana.
Kelley left Baton Rouge for 15 years, living in Amherst, Oakland, and Houston. She returned with her husband, composer Bill Kelley, to raise their child and to teach and mentor young artists in her home state. Kelley is a Professor of Painting at Louisiana State University.
BENJAMIN M. HICKEY
Curator
Kelley is clearly an active participant in the tradition of myth making and appropriating archetypal tropes. The clarity of Kelley’s message is important in a culture, legally, politically, and otherwise, that enables actors to hide their true intentions. At the heart of them, each of Kelley’s works are parables, a means of communicating a moral lesson. Kelley’s work is decidedly feminine. Not only is the heroine is often based on Kelley herself, but her paintings are executed on re-purposed antique linens, handcrafts historically associated with women and domesticity.
Kelley’s work feels archetypal, as though we are familiar with its narrative arc and imagery. This is the case because, as a society, we know enough about Beowulf, Artemis, anthropomorphic creatures, Joan of Arc, and other references to intuitively understand Kelley’s various nods to bygone eras. She incorporates a sense of calm repose into her characters, lending them a timeless, classical quality. It is important to say that Kelley’s singular images create meaning on a deeply personal level, but also use art history as a creative foil. This is so because she can co-opt known conventions to ensure her intentions are understood. Elements of Hieronymus Bosch, Giotto, Paula Rego, and Maria de los Remedios Varo Uranga’s work often serve as inspiration.
Kelli Scott Kelley’s work creates a clear worldview, identifies a variety of actors, and asserts her moral authority. Hopefully her artwork’sequal measures of timeliness and timelessness enable Kelley’s work to occupy its rightful place in America’s imagination and visual culture.
KELLI SCOTT KELLEY
Artist Statement
In my work subconscious worlds, populated by hybrid beings, are woven into dreamlike tales. Figures, animals, and objects appear in metaphorical narratives which explore humankind’s connections, disconnections and impact upon the natural world. The pieces are inspired by the personal, psychological and the sociopolitical. I feel an urgency to use my art practice as a means to mine and express deep truths about the impending demise of the natural world. I attempt to imbue truth with magic, creating a sense of the super natural and otherworldly. I am moved by the exquisite beauty in the world, as well as the absurdity and ugliness.
I employ painting and drawing mediums, along with repurposed emblematic materials. For more than a decade, I have incorporated collage into my painting practice, using vintage linens and other re-purposed fabrics and paper. The found materials reference domesticity and the history of women’s handicrafts and allows for a more ecological art making practice. These found materials hold stories and histories, which offer inspiration and visual bread crumbs. My process involves spending time in nature, reading and research, gathering images, staging and taking photos of models, and making sketches. I also look to artistic ancestors and relatives who have dealt in the otherworldly and the absurd. I turn to artists such as Fra Angelico, Hildegarde Von Bingen, Remedios Varo and Paula Rego for inspiration and context.
I put my emotions into what I make, and because I often feel conflicted, there can be an ambiguity. I depict scenarios that can defy interpretation, that operate in a realm of the enigmatic, encouraging the viewer to look beyond the obvious and commonplace. I hope that through my work, viewers find a place of repose, an opening for contemplation.
