Bio
Kelsey Birsa is a painter living in Portland, Oregon and has a BFA in Art Practices from Portland State University. She is the recipient of awards such as Best in Show at the Society of Washington Artists, The Artist Magazine Student Portrait Competition and first place at Lake Oswego Festival of the Arts. Her work has been exhibited locally at the Blackfish Gallery, Art At The CAVE, Gallery 360, North Bank Artist Gallery, and many more. She has been published in the Columbian, Beacon Magazine, Pathos, and The Artist Magazine.
Artist Statement
Kelsey Birsa’s paintings are united through her use of detailed rendering alongside abstract marks, bold colors, and gold highlights. Interested in traditional painting techniques and themes of the human body, she also likes to explore consciousness and the connection or disconnection that we feel with our physical selves.
In her current series, Birsa explores her experiences of the quarantine and the feelings of anxiety and depression that it has created in herself and many others. She sourced images from her remote online community and included mixed media and abstraction in her process as a reflection of the recent chaos of current events. The past year has been a rollercoaster of emotions for many us, ranging from frustration to compassion and confusion to hope, as we navigate a world of information overload. While we each experienced 2020 a little differently, Birsa’s latest series of paintings illustrate how we are together in our loneliness.