Harbinger, www.kellymckernan.com I like a lot of things about what I do here at KWF. But my favorite moments, by far, are those spent discovering, interviewing, and getting to know the stories of our sponsored artists. I approach this year's artist, Kelly McKernan, with great excitement. I and the rest of the KWF team give her mad props for the professional, structured, committed approach she takes towards advancing her craft. And we love the vibrant, emotive, inspired look and feel of her art. There's something elemental here in Kelly's creations. Pausing to take them in feels like connecting with another plane of existence, one waiting just an eyeblink away, a place we would've missed without her careful guidance.
Kelly's art is clearly influenced by the emotions, trials, tribulations, and triumphs of her personal life. We can follow her work, like signposts, and see the way she's journeyed through a personal and creative life on the precipice of sweeping changes.
There is tremendous power in this authenticity. It whisks us to far-flung locales perched on richly surreal terrain, inhabited by the majestic, haunting, and bizarre. So read on. Let's learn more.
Kelly's art is clearly influenced by the emotions, trials, tribulations, and triumphs of her personal life. We can follow her work, like signposts, and see the way she's journeyed through a personal and creative life on the precipice of sweeping changes.
There is tremendous power in this authenticity. It whisks us to far-flung locales perched on richly surreal terrain, inhabited by the majestic, haunting, and bizarre. So read on. Let's learn more.
The Oracles, www.kellymckernan.com Kelly comes from a creatively inclined family. Her earliest memories feature a desire to pursue art as a profession. One of her biggest "ah-ha" moments drew inspiration from the works of famed surrealist Salvador Dali. The other, from discovering the sublime, curvilinear Art Nouveau of Alphonse Mucha. We certainly see these influences at work across the breadth of Kelly's pieces, with their bold, graphical elements and drifting, dreamlike compositions. There's a complex texture here of both form and formlessness.
Kelly's connection with creativity includes music, and we see how it drives the complexity of her visual art. In her words:
"I had some natural-born talent with music. I could play by ear and had perfect pitch. But due to my parent's divorce at age 9 and subsequent uprooting, my music education was put on hold, so I focused on art instead. I'm totally fine with that, though. I have a profound appreciation for music and it often directly inspires what I create."
And perhaps most interesting of all: "I have 6 forms of synesthesia! It's neither a talent nor a skill, but it definitely influences how I work."
We've got to hear more about that at Con when we get a chance to meet Kelly in person!
Kelly's connection with creativity includes music, and we see how it drives the complexity of her visual art. In her words:
"I had some natural-born talent with music. I could play by ear and had perfect pitch. But due to my parent's divorce at age 9 and subsequent uprooting, my music education was put on hold, so I focused on art instead. I'm totally fine with that, though. I have a profound appreciation for music and it often directly inspires what I create."
And perhaps most interesting of all: "I have 6 forms of synesthesia! It's neither a talent nor a skill, but it definitely influences how I work."
We've got to hear more about that at Con when we get a chance to meet Kelly in person!
Tools and media are the lenses through which artists show us new views of realities. Today, we live in an era with a profusion of digital art. In fact, KWF's charter is to seek out and discover new art on the frontiers of new technologies. But Kelly invited us to rediscover the primordial allure of traditional watercolor painting in the fine art style, a medium tracing its roots back to paleolithic Europe and ancient China. In this world, there is no Photoshop, no UNDO tool, no toolbox of filters. Instead we're invited to live in the flow and mix of paint, unstructured wash and splatter, meticulous details of masks and blots. This is an analog world. And Kelly skillfully builds a digital bridge into it with awesome use of social media, including a live-feed Twitch page, an inspiring and practical tutorial on the Gumroad creative platform, an ongoing and ambitious Patreon project, and an engaging presence on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and elsewhere. Nowhere is this nexus of worlds more apparent than in a recent pic of Kelly's work space. Wet paint on pallete, water and wash, laptop and webcam. It's all there, analog and digital, maybe even a little dash of quantum mechanics with Schrödinger's Cat.
Kelly is also mom to a 3 year-old, and we here at KWF are impressed with the combination of skill, smarts, and patience that it takes to continue deeply creative work while caring for a young child. When asked about how motherhood affected her art, Kelly mentioned the usual changes: An increased need for focus, time management, and the like. Glancing through her well-appointed portfolio suggests that she's adjusted well in these dimensions. But there are some more subtle and interesting currents of change in evidence, and Kelly graciously allowed us an insightful look at them:
"[l] often regard most of my work as self-portraiture, since I can look back on pieces created a year or two prior and see how my life circumstances at the time influenced the work. Looking back on the last three years, I can see myself maturing significantly. There's less "looking in" that would've been caused by self-absorption and general introspection. These days, it's more about looking out, [acknowledging] my place in this universe, and with a display of confidence and wisdom that's come with the grand shift that takes place when you have a child - you're no longer the center of your own universe!"
Impasse, from Kelly's showing at the Antler Gallery in Portland, is a breathtaking look at this inner landscape during a time of great transition, growth, and emergence in Kelly's life. The primal texture of watercolors in this piece, coupled with the emotional allegory, really makes our heart skip a beat.
"[l] often regard most of my work as self-portraiture, since I can look back on pieces created a year or two prior and see how my life circumstances at the time influenced the work. Looking back on the last three years, I can see myself maturing significantly. There's less "looking in" that would've been caused by self-absorption and general introspection. These days, it's more about looking out, [acknowledging] my place in this universe, and with a display of confidence and wisdom that's come with the grand shift that takes place when you have a child - you're no longer the center of your own universe!"
Impasse, from Kelly's showing at the Antler Gallery in Portland, is a breathtaking look at this inner landscape during a time of great transition, growth, and emergence in Kelly's life. The primal texture of watercolors in this piece, coupled with the emotional allegory, really makes our heart skip a beat.
Impasse. www.kellymckernan.com
And if we at KWF weren't already excited enough by Kelly's mastery of the sublime, discovering that she's a through-and-through nerd just threw fuel on the fire:
What a perfect addition to this year's Comic-Con.
We're excited to get to know Kelly and her work in person, and are deeply honored that the Kevin Workman Foundation's livery will be featured alongside her incredible art at the largest pop art and comic convention in the world.
We invite you to learn more about Kelly, to get excited, to be inspired. To share your excitement, and to inspire.
Check it out!
We're excited to get to know Kelly and her work in person, and are deeply honored that the Kevin Workman Foundation's livery will be featured alongside her incredible art at the largest pop art and comic convention in the world.
We invite you to learn more about Kelly, to get excited, to be inspired. To share your excitement, and to inspire.
Check it out!
- www.kellymckernan.com/
- kellymckernanart on Facebook
- kellymckernan on Twitch
- @kelly_mckernan on Twitter
- @kelly_mckernan on Instagram
- Kelly's Gumroad page
- Kelly's Patreon projects
- Kelly's wide-ranging CV, including a tour de force of gallery showings
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