Artist Spotlight: Emily Kell's Paintings Embody Mysticism

Every morning, Emily Kell reads tarot. While snow falls on a wintry Friday and a pot of soup simmers on the stove, she pulls two cards that have been recurring lately: Temperance and the Queen of Pentacles.

"I keep pulling Temperance, which I think is a reminder to slow down a little bit, since I've been working really hard," Kell explains. "Then I pulled the Queen of Pentacles — that's a homebody, a motherly being. And that's just, well, me."

Kell doesn't need to travel far from home to work on her art. She's converted her purple garage in Boulder into a cozy studio lined with paintings bearing her signature backdrop of glowing galaxies and mystical feminine figures — paintings headed for her solo exhibit, Keeping the Thread, at the Medusa Collective in Westminster. "I feel like this show is the culmination of a chapter for me," Kell says. "I had a few big experiences that are woven into themes in the artwork, but I'm sticking with my theme of painting people I know through an archetypal lens. It's all kinds of sweet and tender artwork, and I'm hoping it's a 'feeling' experience for people to see."

A full-time artist, Kell has cultivated a worldwide fan base with her paintings' life-affirming quality, delicately rendered in portraits of her friends as archetypes from ancient mysticism and religion. Many people first encountered her work on the music festival circuit, where for years Kell could be seen live-painting around the U.S. and beyond. "It's kind of my roots," she says. "I think I just really loved dancing, and I was already a painter, and then I found the spaces where I could both dance and paint. I really made that a big part of my life for many years. I haven't been going to festivals recently, but I still love dancing, and there are a lot of visionary artists whose work I really love and admire."
Although Kell got her start painting at music festivals, she eschews such psychedelic tropes as the sacred geometry and spiraling eyeballs that are typical of festival painters. "I think a lot of visionary art focuses on ecstatic states," she reflects, "but I'm more interested in liminal states — people going through a transition, or moments of catharsis or tenderness, so it's a bit of a different focus."

Her talent for visualizing both the spiritual and the profound is what earned her the "visionary artist" label, but her technical skill, originality and intuitive nature make her work stand out. Her mentors include other visionary artists who have similarly pushed the boundaries of the genre, and she's collaborated with many of them. "Autumn Skye Morrison taught me acrylic and a lot about portraiture," she says. "I have a new collaboration with my friend Morgan Mandala in the upcoming show, and I've collaborated with Randal Roberts and John Speaker. ... I remember straight out of college, I got to show work in an exhibition with Alex Grey, and that was really encouraging."

Kell graduated with a degree in painting from the Savannah College of Art and Design in 2012, and moved to Boulder in 2018 to seek treatment for her chronic pain and autoimmune struggles. Her career includes many noteworthy accomplishments, including being published in the 2018 book Women of Visionary Art alongside artists including Josephine Wall, Allyson Grey, Amanda Sage and Martina Hoffmann. "My milestones have been defined by more small moments and just consistent support," she says. "I'm always surprised that people from all over are buying prints from me, and that feels very supportive."
Kell's painting is sourced straight from the heart and can sometimes incorporate her other creative endeavors, such as poetry. "It's actually really nerdy," she says with a laugh. "It's a part of my art that is maybe a little sci-fi-, fantasy book-inspired, but I actually made an alphabet. It's called 'moon scratch,' and it's a little language that I write poems and then stories into the backgrounds of my paintings with.

"I love books, and I love reading stories. I feel like there's common threads of myth in all religions and all stories. All really good stories kind of have some common threads. So it's not that I'm studying a specific mythology; I'm just thinking in a lot of stories," she adds.

While her work for the upcoming show carries her distinct through-lines of deep purples, her signature portraiture and moon scratch, Kell also found herself dipping into new directions. "I was wanting to make some sillier paintings and some more playful paintings," she explains. "There is still a touch of mythology in them, but they're a little more illustrative and goofy; that's a new thing for me."

Whether they're goofy or brooding, her paintings are always emotive, as if her own thoughts were steeped in the paint before being cast onto canvas. Kell finds most of her inspiration through studying mythology, art and tarot; one of her recent paintings, "Allegory of Charity," is a modernized, star-filled version of Francisco de Zurbarán's circa 1655 painting of the same name.
One of her upcoming projects is fulfilling a longtime goal of creating a tarot deck, as her paintings have often been compared to that imagery. "I also love writing, so I wrote the whole deck; it was a passion project," she says. "Tarot has helped me tap into archetypes and archetypal imagery, and in terms of my artwork, it has helped me to create images that echo Major Arcana cards, which is potent, because the cards have meaning that I think everyone relates to on some level. I like using tarot as one lens of creativity. I also use it personally, pulling cards daily to give me some insight. It's a great system to explore the subconscious through."

Kell often uses the female form as a subject in her paintings, emboldening it with metaphor. In "Bloom," which will be included in the Medusa Collective solo, Kell's torso is topped with a violet rose in full bloom, as her right hand rests on her stomach and her left holds a needle pulling thread, which has sewn up a scar over her heart.
"When it comes to choosing subject matter, I have always been intuitive and painted what I felt most drawn to paint, because I think that is the most direct route to making your most authentic art," Kell says. "I never exactly set out to focus on the feminine, but it has become a focus through my own life experience and through interacting with other people and their stories. I'm interested in making paintings that are sensual and emotionally evocative, and I think a lot of the people who have come into my life and who I've worked with have shared those interests. I have plans to make more paintings that represent people of other genders, too. The path that opened up in front of me has so far included painting lots of women, which I could probably do forever because it's such a joy. But it's not so much about gender as it is about transformation, tenderness and sensuality...human experiences that transcend gender."

In turn, she wants her paintings to provide transcendental inspiration.

"I hope people receive inspiration and solidarity through my artwork," Kell says. "I'd like it to be a reminder of the common experiences of being human, and all of the stories and intimacy that make up those experiences."

Keeping the Thread: A Solo Exhibit by Emily Kell, 6 p.m. Saturday, January 14, Medusa Collective, 7140 Hooker Street, Westminster. RSVP for the opening at themedusacollective.com.