KELLY.ALLEN.



SWEET.LIKE.HARMONY.

1. What’s up Kelly styles? How are you?

What’s up guys? I’m great!! It’s a beautiful day! I just finished eating cereal and watching the finches and bees feeding off of our super tall sunflowers in the back yard. Funny, everybody’s yellow and black… they all match…. interesting….

2. @ what time in your life did you realize that art was a part of your creative spirit?

I have always been artistically inclined. I remember being really young and doing my own little art projects by myself. When I was about 5 years old, I remember taking my plastic trash can in my room and making it into a loom so I could weave bookmarks and things. Pretty weird. I have always loved music and dancing, but my greatest strengths and passion lies with making things with my hands and creating objects and images that are beautiful and strange.



UNTITLED.


3. What is it about Nature that inspires you?
Oh man, so much! I am awestruck constantly over the beauty and perfection of the creatures and systems in nature. There is a kind of wisdom inherent in everything on this incredible planet. I am amazed by schools of fish, flocks of birds and swarms of insects that all act in synchronicity, as if they were all part of the same body, as well the crazy similarities between macroscopic and microscopic life. I just saw a picture of the neurons in a mouse brain compared to a simulated image of the universe created by a group of astrophysicists. They look amazingly identical. Like Stevie Wonder said, “A Seed is A Star, A Star is A Seed.” It proves to me that everything is interconnected and interdependent upon on another in some way.

4. If you could be any creature what would it be & why?
Hmmm. I’m sure I would answer this question differently every time, but right now I would like to be a hummingbird. They are so crazy! I would love to be teeny tiny and fly so fast and gracefully. (I just found out they are the only bird that can fly backward.) I would love to spend my days drinking sweet flower juice, and I’d be all shiny and iridescent. Then, in the winter time, I would go on a major migration to Mexico with all of my friends and family!?!! Sounds pretty good to me.



EVERY.LITTLE.THING.


5. What role does music play in your art, if any?
Music soothes my soul. It really affects my mood and energy. I love to dance and sing (even though I’m not that great) and I pretty much always have music going while I’m painting, cooking, or whatever I’m doing. I love really old reggae and latin music like Desmond Dekker and Tito Puente, Motown, and all kinds of old random stuff, as well as lots of new stuff like M.I.A, Santi Gold, Girl Talk and Bjork.

6. Do you prefer aliens or white witches?
Well, I haven’t met either yet, and I think they’re both pretty neat, so it’s hard to say. I guess I’ll have to go with aliens. They probably have way more special powers than witches, and I would like to ask them a lot of questions. No probing though!! Yikes!

SAY.IT.TOGETHER.NATURALLY.

7. Is there a message behind your pieces?
Yeah, definitely. The main motivation behind my pieces is to encourage the viewer to kind of get lost in their imagination and realize relationships between all of the different things in each image. I want people to be removed from their every day mode of consciousness and experience my work from a place of curiosity, inventiveness, and creativity. I think it’s really important for us to engage with that aspect of ourselves more often. There’s so much more to being human than going to work, shopping, and watching TV. We are amazing creatures and we are surrounded by amazing creatures. My works are my expression of gratitude for the beautiful and bizarre life forms and systems and interconnections



HONEY.PLEASE.


8. If you could give one gift to the universe what would it be?
I would remove the capacity for fear in all people. Fear is the root of all hatred, anger, and violence. We’d be a lot better off without it.


CHECK.OUT.KELLY.ALLENS.WORK.@.WWW.KELLYALLEN.COM
INTERVIEW.by.RockersNYC.&.KELLY.ALLEN.