A visual essayist with a wanderlust
Kelynn, an artist of Mexican-American descent, grew up with a peripatetic family who lived in several countries and traveled extensively. At a young age she expressed her fascination with peoples’ diverse backgrounds and cultures through portraiture. Self-defined as a “visual essayist with a wanderlust,” Kelynn has followed traditional expeditionary methods of working in the field, combined with work in the studio. She has been commissioned by private collectors across the globe and is renowned for her portraits of Aboriginals elders of Australia, Papua New Guinean tribal leaders, and the Lacandon Maya of the Mexican rainforest.
After receiving her MFA at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan, Kelynn’s paintings were featured in Cynthia Maris Dantzic’s book, 100 New York Painters. She was commissioned to paint portraits for major editorials such as The New Yorker, and delved into a painting series documenting Coney Island and its sideshow performers.
Throughout her painting life Kelynn has retained a close bond to her Mexican heritage. She often uses historic and popular Mexican icons as part of her language to convey visual narratives. Such symbolism can be seen in her current series of paintings for an upcoming exhibition on the “Day of the Dead” rituals of the highland Maya of Chiapas.
Her paintings have been described as a marriage between “Mexican muralism and impressionism,” and aside from painting the large-scale canvases in her studio, she has also painted murals in Chiapas, Mexico including at the Na Bolom Museum, a cultural research institute. When asked if she prefers working large scale, Kelynn responded, “I like working all sizes, but ideas and brushstrokes flow freer in wide open spaces.”
As a daughter of an immigrant, Kelynn’s work employs her connection to the struggles of humanity through her rich cultural ancestry with an inherent duty to portray the daily practices and traditions of everyday people with dignity. Kelynn has advocated to create artistic outlets for her Latinx community and is a founding member of the Latino Arts Council of Long Island, a non-profit organization. She has also been named Guest Curator for the Long Island Museum, an affiliate of the Smithsonian, for an upcoming exhibition of Long Island Latinx artists.
Kelynn has lectured and conducted art workshops throughout the United States and Mexico and teaches painting at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan.
A dog lover, Kelynn authored The Photo Shoot, a humorous short story about becoming a stage mom for her all-too-clever Bernese Mountain Dog, Osita.
She is currently writing a memoir about the precarious balancing of an artistic career, marriage and motherhood. She hadn’t wanted the dog. But it would be the dog(s) that saved her. She currently lives on the North Shore of Long Island with her brilliant and beautiful Australian Shepherds.
MORE ON THE ORIGINS OF MY JOURNEY
Virtual Artist Encounters: Kelynn Alder
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The Photo Shoot is a funny short story about an artist, writer, teacher who becomes a stage mom for her Bernese Mountain Dog Osita— and all that’s involved in prepping the would-be star for her first ‘shoot’ in New York City. Osita, a beautiful mail-order-dog arrives into the author’s life via the JFK airport after a night of heavy tequila drinking with girlfriends. Hoping that this puppy will replace the well-behaved Bernese Mountain Dog she just lost, it soon becomes apparent that this Bernese Mountain Dog is far too spirited to mold herself into the family’s usual routines. After a dog trainer comments that her dog “is smarter than she is,” the mom steps up her training, and drags her son into being her assistant. Once she finally masters the method of clicker training, she and her dog are able to perform basic dog training command… LEARN MORE
Artist Statement: Love No Borders
Thirty years ago, I believed my role was as a sort of journalist-documentarian—to record as impartially as I could what I saw through sketching and painting. Aside from doing editorial portraits, I depicted Balthus Island Aboriginals hunting, tribal wars in Papua New Guinea, boardwalk scenes in Coney Island and the disappearing culture of the Lacandon Maya in Chiapas, Mexico.
As the daughter and granddaughter of Mexican immigrants, today I feel my role as an artist is not just to document what I witness, but to speak out against social injustices inflicted on Latinx communities across our country. I am particularly horrified by the cruelty of mothers being separated from their families by ICE, such as Irma Zea and Debora Barrios have been. Irma and Debora are just two in the thousands who have suffered from being separated from their children.
Debora had been in a sanctuary church separated from her family for 15 months. The last time I visited her in church she said, “People aren’t only being separated at the border—they are being split up across this country. I’ve spoken to over sixteen journalists and my situation hasn’t changed. Aqui estoy.” “I am (still) here.”
Irma was separated from her family and held in deportation in New Jersey for six months. She exhausted the savings she had accumulated over a dozen years for her 2 daughters’ college educations (as they are DACA students and not eligible for in-state tuition or foreign scholarships) in order to pay her legal fees to be freed. She is now in the process of seeking asylum.
I was moved by both Irma and Debora crossing their arms on their chests protectively, defiantly and independently when they posed for their portraits, My America and Aquí Estoy, respectively.
“Kelynn Alder is a fantastic artist, a serious professional and a wonderful human being. Her empathy with her subjects comes across clearly in her faithful, rich and nuanced portraiture, and she is truly a master of a wide range of techniques. Gifted, experienced and centered, Kelynn Alder is the real thing.”
“Kelynn Alder’s Coney Island collection is like a wild dream you know you should wake up from, but it’s too fascinating to leave just yet. And despite the artifice of the subjects’ costumes, their joy is genuine. Alder paints happiness as real as the relief of misfits who finally found a welcoming tribe.”
“Through her art, Kelynn provides the viewer with an inspiring way to experience her lifetime of focused commitment to documenting people, their cultures and oftentimes an unseen view of the corners of the world in which we live.”
“What Arthur B. Davies did for Ashcan artists and Warhol did for Campbell’s Soup cans, Kelynn Alder has done for Coney Island. With her trained eye and expert painterly technique, she has transfigured a slice of mundane life into the realm of high art. Like her wondrous Mexican street scenes, she has shed her kindly artistic light on what is often viewed as the quintessence of vulgarity and enabled us to see the beauty and the energy in America’s ionic Amusement Park. In so doing she has made some important icons of her own.”
As a painter, illustrator, and printmaker, Kelynn Alder is a dynamic artist. As guest curator of the Long Island Museum’s award-winning exhibition, SOMOS/We Are (2023), she developed a diverse and wonderful checklist of 82 artists of Latino heritage who have lived and/or worked on Long Island. LIM has been fortunate to add Kelynn’s work My America, to its permanent collection. This poignant, large-format portrait tells a moving story of diaspora and difficult passage. It’s the story of immigrant Irma Zea, originally from Mexico, who gained asylum here in Suffolk County only after a long detention and family separation. This acquisition has a powerful narrative that extends the Museum’s portrait collection into the 21st century with a story of relevance to all of us.
Alder paints history. A vivid colorist, a visual essayist, and a sensitive portraitist keenly aware of Mexican cultural heritage and the cycle of life and death, Kelynn Z. Alder is unparalleled in her use of Indigenous, political and religious iconography to create complex arrangements of memory, political commentary, and symbolism. Her imagery lifts up those who continue important traditions and rituals, and makes us aware of our place in the world and within the arc of human history.
In her show entitled Animal Spirits and Ancient Rituals at Gallery North, she delves into the ancestral rituals, beliefs and rites of her heritage to create vivid paintings and complex mono-prints and drawings.
“Kelynn Alder is a fantastic artist, a serious professional and a wonderful human being. Her empathy with her subjects comes across clearly in her faithful, rich and nuanced portraiture, and she is truly a master of a wide range of techniques. Gifted, experienced and centered, Kelynn Alder is the real thing.”
“Kelynn Alder’s Coney Island collection is like a wild dream you know you should wake up from, but it’s too fascinating to leave just yet. And despite the artifice of the subjects’ costumes, their joy is genuine. Alder paints happiness as real as the relief of misfits who finally found a welcoming tribe.”
“Through her art, Kelynn provides the viewer with an inspiring way to experience her lifetime of focused commitment to documenting people, their cultures and oftentimes an unseen view of the corners of the world in which we live.”
“What Arthur B. Davies did for Ashcan artists and Warhol did for Campbell’s Soup cans, Kelynn Alder has done for Coney Island. With her trained eye and expert painterly technique, she has transfigured a slice of mundane life into the realm of high art. Like her wondrous Mexican street scenes, she has shed her kindly artistic light on what is often viewed as the quintessence of vulgarity and enabled us to see the beauty and the energy in America’s ionic Amusement Park. In so doing she has made some important icons of her own.”
As a painter, illustrator, and printmaker, Kelynn Alder is a dynamic artist. As guest curator of the Long Island Museum’s award-winning exhibition, SOMOS/We Are (2023), she developed a diverse and wonderful checklist of 82 artists of Latino heritage who have lived and/or worked on Long Island. LIM has been fortunate to add Kelynn’s work My America, to its permanent collection. This poignant, large-format portrait tells a moving story of diaspora and difficult passage. It’s the story of immigrant Irma Zea, originally from Mexico, who gained asylum here in Suffolk County only after a long detention and family separation. This acquisition has a powerful narrative that extends the Museum’s portrait collection into the 21st century with a story of relevance to all of us.
Alder paints history. A vivid colorist, a visual essayist, and a sensitive portraitist keenly aware of Mexican cultural heritage and the cycle of life and death, Kelynn Z. Alder is unparalleled in her use of Indigenous, political and religious iconography to create complex arrangements of memory, political commentary, and symbolism. Her imagery lifts up those who continue important traditions and rituals, and makes us aware of our place in the world and within the arc of human history.
In her show entitled Animal Spirits and Ancient Rituals at Gallery North, she delves into the ancestral rituals, beliefs and rites of her heritage to create vivid paintings and complex mono-prints and drawings.
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