Kelsey Elverum
Bio: Kelsey Elverum grew up on an island north of Seattle. She received her BFA in Painting and Drawing from the University of Washington in 2009 and a Post-Baccalaureate Certificate in Studio Art from Brandeis University in 2012. Her work combines printmaking, painting, drawing, sculpture, and installation.
Thesis Exhibition
Artist statement:
What is your history?
I grew up on an island north of Seattle. My fragmented family lived above the water, 500 ft. up on the edge of a cliff in a hidden forest. I watched eagles fly and whales swim by my window. I hiked mountains and combed beaches. I tended gardens and gathered eggs. From a child to an adult, I hunted for fossils in sand and dirt and rain and sun. The mountains and water and green are as much a part of me as flesh and blood. It was seductive to reinvent the turbulence of people and events that surrounded this insular world.
Does this factor into your work?
My work is my history, nature’s history, excavation, my equal heritages of Norwegian and Filipino, mythology, recreation, fantasy, totemism...
And your colors reflect this?
My colors come exclusively from nature. So, yes. The neon pinks, the hot blues, the deep lavenders...they are as readily found as browns and blacks. It is easy to dismiss them as unnatural and artificial but I see the skin of frogs, scales of fish, the petals of flowers, the green of trees against a grey sky. Natural. And very human.