Kelsey Phillips

 

Kelsey Phillips (b. 2000) is a queer artist who uses natural imagery and symbolism alongside aspects of the uncanny to explore disruption of binaries, specifically those between human and nonhuman, and mundane and supernatural. To empathize with the nonhuman is to acknowledge the monstrous or “unnatural” parts of oneself, leaving room for the exploration and transformation of identity within that space. They approach their subjects with a naturalist intent; in placing them in reality or almost-reality, they render the fictional as something tangible. The Sonoran Desert and its wildlife—coyotes in particular—are present in much of Kelsey’s work; they are a fifth-generation Arizonan and seek to represent the beauty of the unique environment they grew up in.