Ty Kelly

Ty's professional background and field of study is Architecture, having co-partnered a Seattle based design and model building company since 2000.  Following his degree at Montana State University, he attended Graduate School at the Southern California Institute of Architecture in Los Angeles CA.

"The challenge for me, is merging my interests in both art and architecture.  Obviously, these two fields inherently share many areas of study throughout their process… color, composition, texture, shape, transparency, spacial relationships, points/lines/planes, and so on.  While the built environment is strongly driven by geometric principals and a high level of precision, I think art allows us to take a step back and think more conceptually.  This step back offers many different paths to making.

My work oscillates between the figurative and abstract.  Model building, which is often dictated by detail-focused craft, has definitely been an influence.  Subject matter aside, I put strong emphasis on how things are constructed, which often falls into the areas of relief, collage and sculpture. 

I also happen to be a graphics junkie.  Admittedly, I like manipulating recognizable imagery, from advertising media to film icons and fueling this interest with nostalgia, humor and pop-culture references."