ARTIST STATEMENT

My work explores the layers of identity—personal and cultural—and how they interact, conflict, and shape our understanding of ourselves and the world. We all carry stories, secrets, and emotions that are difficult to express. Through painting, I give form to the complexities of my own mind. Using fire, beeswax, forest fire ash, and other location-specific materials, my work embodies cycles of destruction and renewal. By layering and fusing these elements, I highlight the resilience of both the human spirit and the natural world, showing how they mirror and influence each other in their processes of healing. Both my abstract and figurative pieces reflect this resilience, shaped by fire and layered with meaning.

BIOGRAPHY

Kelly Williams has been a full-time contemporary artist and educator in Portland Oregon for 20 years. She is an Artist instructor for R&F Handmade Paints and instructor for Painting with Fire’s online masterclass, as well as teaching a variety of in-person workshops in her studio. She works across multiple mediums, creating large-scale encaustic abstracts that are richly layered with energetic mark-making, expressing internal emotional landscapes and environmental themes. In contrast, her figurative work explores the subtle interplay between narrative identity, cultural influence, and personal expression.

With a background in psychology and social work, Kelly found art to be a powerful tool in helping facilitate communication around that which is unspeakable. Her approach is an extension of the visual narrative as a method of psychological processing. As a full time artist, she incorporates similar methods in her own process as well as working with individuals and small groups in a studio setting. 

As a recipient of multiple grants from RACC (Regional Arts and Culture Council) she has developed community projects focused on giving disenfranchised communities access to art in a healing capacity. These projects also engaged the wider community in conversation regarding mental health education through post-project exhibitions and discussions. She has also received the Ford Family Foundation grant and has been a featured speaker and educator at both the International Encaustic Conference as well as The International Encaustic Retreat.

Kelly is collected and exhibited locally and nationally, has curated large-scale exhibitions at P5 (Portland Center for the Performing Arts), and been featured in multiple publications, podcasts and blogs. Some of these include Art in the Pearl Magazine, R&F Handmade Paint Blog and the Deeper Pulse Podcast. Through radio and tv interviews she has shared her unique approach and experience in using art as a healing tool affecting individuals and their communities

Kelly continues to educate and mentor both amateur and professional artists, blending multiple methods and materials with a narrative psychology approach to inform her personal work, group workshops and private sessions.