Driven to bring new life to objects that may otherwise have been lost in time, Kelsey Irvin finds herself collecting traces of lives lived – “memories misplaced in need of recognition.”

After spending many years exploring a wide range of techniques and media, the artist has developed a unique way of incorporating drawing, painting,and collage into almost all of her work. Reaching for a balance between the past and the present, her work exudes a deep sense of nostalgia.

Irvin studied at St. Lawrence University in Upstate New York before venturing to Southern California, where she now lives. Her paintings are in public and private collections throughout the UnitedStates, Italy, Dubai, Greece, Singapore, and China.

“Using vintage ephemera in my work is a way to pay homage to those memories, those lives. In a world that is becoming more digital each day, I’m driven to bring new life to objects that may otherwise be lost and deteriorated in time. The challenge I seek is to maintain a balance between working with such old objects and recreating them in a contemporary artwork that holds the test of time.”

Irvin’s work is in the art collection at the International Museum of Collage, Assemblage and Construction in Santa Fe, NM. She has been in exhibitions at Laguna Art Museum, Pensacola Museum of Art, Marin Museum of Contemporary Art, Attleboro Arts Museum, and in several gallery exhibitions across the United States as well as Greece.

“Nostalgia is a sentimental longing or wistful desire for elements of the past. I aim to explore this word in depth by confronting sentimental subject matter with the use of traditional media merged with significant, unconventional media including vintage ephemera dating back to the 1920’s.