Kelly Jones is an artist from the mountains of North West Georgia. She’s currently a full-time student at Valdosta State University, where she focuses on graphic design, painting and photography. Kelly makes works of art that reference her experiences with people and places she has visited. She recently started experimenting with mixed media and the relationships between people and their interests. Her family plays a great role in her artwork and where she decides to settle down and plant her roots. In the future, Kelly would like to move back home to the NW Georgia area and pursue a graphic design job in the city of Chattanooga, TN.
When it comes to creating art, I have found myself through graphic design, photography and painting. I approach each medium differently. Graphic design is my way of connecting with people through the use of color and type. I keep my graphic design work simple, clever, and original.
I have become a traveler through photography. Many of my photos are documentation of people and places I have encountered. I have gained inspiration from solo trips to Jacksonville, Florida, a beautiful plantation in Thomasville, Georgia, and my hometown Tunnel Hill, Georgia.
Painting is a way for me to clear my mind and get lost in the process. Being able to physically add color and texture to the canvas is why I enjoy it so much.
By combining the three mediums into one composition, I create a mixed media piece of artwork that embodies my different processes, but also reflect me as a person. Through an assemblage of different forms, I create something new entirely. I am able to recreate memories from my childhood through mixed media. I collage pieces of photos, wrappers, fabric, paint and illustrated graphics together to create a series of events recollected from my childhood. When we think about memories they aren’t always clear, you see them in bits and pieces. This idea is expressed with cut up photos layered on top of one other making the image as a whole unclear.
Although all my mediums are different in their processes, they are similar in subject matter. At the end of the day my family and friends are the center of my artwork. My artwork is a platform for me to express my ideas to the viewer so they can also relate to their own personal experiences.