Kellye P. Carter

Layering Beauty. Honoring Legacy. Celebrating Resilience.

Artist Statement

My work celebrates African American life, beauty, and resilience. Through richly layered mixed-media paintings, I explore identity, memory, connection, and the quiet power of perseverance. I portray the Black people I know and love in the fullness of their humanity—not only through struggle, but through beauty, tenderness, strength, joy, defiance, and everyday grace.

My process is rooted in layering. I combine watercolor and acrylic with textiles, beads, gemstones, and found objects, transforming painted surfaces into richly tactile, dimensional compositions. I have known that I was an "artist" from a very young age. However, what began as a fascination with watercolor in high school has evolved into an intuitive practice of adding, arranging, and embellishing. In my Adornment and Love Flowers series, these materials serve as more than decorative elements; they carry associations of memory and heritage.

Layering is also central to how I understand Black experience. Where Black lives and stories have often been flattened, overlooked, or erased, I choose to add—to build, adorn, preserve, and make visible. Each material contributes another layer of meaning, creating works that speak to my experiences and memories.

I want viewers to encounter my paintings as celebrations of presence. To allow the figures and surfaces to invite a consideration of what it means to be seen, to be valued, and to flourish. My work honors the sacredness of Black existence and the generations of resilience carried within it.

Ultimately, my paintings are acts of affirmation. They are reminders that survival is not the end of the story. There is beauty in becoming, power in being seen, and profound grace in the determination to flourish.