Rich, Kelsey

Artist Biography

Ms. Kelsey Rich is a 29 year old African-American artist from Hampton, Virginia. 

At an early age Kelsey was acknowledged for her artistic abilities, from elementary school into middle school, Ms. Rich participated in an after school Art program for students that showed artistic excellence, also known as Art excel. 

Unfortunately, the visual arts programs in Virginia were constantly on the verge of being defunded. By the time Ms. Rich reached high school, the Art excel program had Dissipated. Aside from the guidance of her high school art teachers, Ms. Rich has been self-taught, and is continuing to work on learning the foundational skills of fine art, developing a consistent style, and finding her niche within the art world. 

Kelsey is a digital illustrator. Her works regularly involve subject matter which involve mental health, feminism, and racism.  The focus of her work is to promote understanding about the complexities surrounding these subjects and addressing the negative societal norms on the matter.

 Her illustrations use vivid pastel, neon, and juxtaposing colors that contradict the blatant melancholy subject matter. Ms. Rich does this to draw the audience in while communicating specific ideas or feelings.

The reasoning behind these contrasting elements Rich explains, “I tend to give great thought about exactly what I want to convey and what I want the audience to infer, or my exact meaning by doing extensive research and merging cultural themes.”

Ms. Rich is currently completing her Bachelor’s of Art at Temple University’s campus in Japan, and is expected to graduate May 20th, 2022. After graduation, she is planning to continue creating illustrations, and produce installations independently outside of teaching.

Satirical Sadness

The following digital illustrations for this section involve the recurring subject matter of mental health within Ms. Rich’s artwork. The focus of the works is to both express Ms. Rich’s personal experience with the subject, but also addresses negative biases surrounding the complexities of mental illness.

Vividly Nonsensical

These following pieces are freelance works and undergraduate projects that displays Ms. Rich’s frequent use of bright, complementary colors, which she often uses to draw the viewer’s attention. As well as, her way of combating the misconception that all art about mental health is dark in color and filled with heavy shades.

Artist Statement

Different experiences, personal hardships, cultural and social issues often deeply impact me and inadvertently influence my artwork. Leading me to think about what is bothering me and exactly what I want to communicate to the audience in my piece. I do this by doing extensive research, then merge various cultural themes and social ideologies.

I illustrate to reach out and invite others to understand different realities from their own by conveying messages in a single image, which then invokes thought or new perspectives. While simultaneously encouraging the audience to remove the blinding shades the societal majority put on them. For instance, there is recurring use of lime green in the majority of my pieces, that both acts as an attention grabber and message for mental health awareness.

Each artwork has a different color palette. Some with muted colors mixed with touches of vibrant neon colors, while others have nothing but bright colors throughout the piece. This juxtaposing use of color is used to contradict the blatant melancholy subject matter. I do this to draw the viewer’s attention while simultaneously provoking specific ideas or feelings that dismantle preconceived biases and notions surrounding racism, feminism, and mental health. When words can’t reach others’ empathy or indifference for liminal minorities, I want my work to be there to promote understanding.