Girl Underneath Painting

Ashevillle, NC based artist Michelle Kelly has been a creative her whole life. Having found a calling as a photographer in 2007 she spent several years indulging in photography, collecting images that served as a translation of the divine on earth. After hording hundreds and thousands of these jewels onto hard-drives where no one sees, Michelle took a break in order to step back and reevaluate the purpose of this endeavor. She realized that the destination of this collection was to provide a medium for her to birth these photographs into physical reality in a new form. Michelle utilizes experimental processes, guided by combinations of drawing, paint and photo transfer techniques that bring her delight and awe, as a platform to translate her photography into the physical. To Michelle art has become, not just an expression, but a form of worship. It is seeing what is miraculous and sacred in life, and then sharing these evoked sensations with others through visual poetry. Substantiating with images is a way to communicate and point out this awesome world for others to notice and realize. Michelle is an artist who isn’t just the inventor but the receiver of experience, who has the privilege of interacting with this form of communicating and opening her heart to the experience of this daily. Michelle Kelly was born in Las Animas Colorado in 1976, and has lived and raised three kids in the Appalachian mountains most of her adult life. She began working as a sculpture, pottery and stained glass artist in 1998 until she fell in love with photography. In 2019 she began taking up mixed-media painting and charcoal drawing. Michelle has a master's degree in fine art photography and has taught workshops and has shown her work in a variety of galleries and solo exhibits.