Artist Statement

 “When we fall in love with the living world, we cannot be bystanders to its destruction.” - Robin Wall Kimmerrer

My work explores kinship, mystery, and reverence for the more-than-human world.  Paintings and etchings emerge from intimate encounters with elements of nature that I inhabit and that inhabit me.  I spend a lot of time in the swamps in and around the Atchafalaya Basin in South Louisiana, so the flora, fauna, light, and water I encounter there is especially present in my work. My presence in the landscape and practice in my studio strengthen my relationship with the land in its beauty and fragility, as well as my sense of responsibility for an environment that is on the front lines of a rapidly changing climate.

My subjects include both the visible and invisible aspects of these intimate encounters, in waking life and in dreams, translated from direct observation and through the language of symbols. I collect water everywhere I go, leaving something when I take something, and mix that water with paint to imbue my objects with the essence of time and place and the memory that the water carries. I paint the spirit of the land to reflect our interdependence and kinship.

Here in Bulbancha (colonially known as New Orleans), which translates to “the land where many languages are spoken,” my practice is to continue to deepen my receptivity to more-than-human languages and ways of being.  I consider each painting a record of all that we stand to lose as the planet warms and the land vanishes. I hope to invite viewers into an awareness of a kinship with the land that may become an antidote to estrangement, from the earth and each other and ourselves. 

Bio

Madeleine Kelly is a New Orleans–based artist and educator whose work explores kinship, mystery, and reverence for the natural world. Working primarily in painting and printmaking, her practice reflects an ongoing engagement with observation, intuition, and the layered relationships between human and nonhuman forms. She received her MFA from the University of New Orleans in 2024. Alongside her studio practice, Kelly is a dedicated arts educator and currently teaches drawing and painting at the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts (NOCCA).

Kelly is the recipient of the 2024 Homer L. Hitt Society Art Award and has participated in residencies including the King Range National Conservation Area Artist-in-Residence program (2024) and the Brackish Collective Artist Residency (2025). Her work has been exhibited regionally and nationally, with recent presentations at Good Children Gallery, Twin Steeples Arts Center, and Art Spot in Louisiana, as well as Whitespace in Atlanta, Georgia; the Berry Biodiversity Conservation Center in Laramie, Wyoming; and SCARF Gallery in Shelter Cove, California. Her work has been featured in the Hatched Podcast, New Orleans Arts Rag, Antenna Signals Magazine, Atlanta Magazine, and Slip Art Magazine

Madeleine’s work is currently on view in the group exhibition Boundary Layers at Whitespace Gallery in Atlanta, Georgia (January 24th - March 7th).

She has two upcoming two-person exhibitions in New Orleans this spring:

Soft Wild, with Jacob Reptile at Lowpoint, March 14th - April 26th

Kindred, with Paige Devries at Good Children Gallery, April 11th - May 3rd