Kelly Berg (b. 1986, Concord, Massachusetts) was raised in Minneapolis,
Minnesota and is currently based in Los Angeles, California. She received her BFA
degree from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2008. Berg has presented solo
exhibitions at Craig Krull Gallery, Melissa Morgan Fine Art, The Pete and Susan Barrett
Art Gallery at Santa Monica College, and The Lancaster Museum of Art and History.
Berg was the outdoor featured artist for "Art & Nature 2022" at the Laguna Art Museum
and created an interactive installation "Pyramidion", featuring seven large-scale
reflective pyramid sculptures placed in the landscape of Laguna Beach. Her work has
been featured in group exhibitions at many notable venues including USC Fisher
Museum of Art, Museo Ercolanense Portici - Napoli in Italy, The Los Angeles
International Airport, The Ronald H. Silverman Fine Arts Gallery at California State
University, The Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art at Pepperdine University, and The
Manhattan Beach Arts Center. Berg's work is part of the permanent collection of The
Lancaster Museum of Art and History, The Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation, and
many private and corporate collections. Berg was an artist-in-residence at the Art 1307
Cultural Institution in Naples, Italy (2019) and at Boxo Projects in Joshua Tree,
California (2021). During both residencies she created works in dialogue with the
landscape and the unique geologic features specific to those locations. Her work has
been featured in The Los Angeles Times, White Hot Magazine, Artillery Magazine,
Curator, Art Miami Magazine, Quiet Lunch, Art Now LA, Art & Cake, Stu News, and
Easy Reader News among many other publications, and was the subject of an episode
of Santa Monica City TV's "Wave Arts and Culture" television series.
Kelly Berg's paintings and mixed media sculptural works explore the ever-shifting
nature of our world. Known for her compositions depicting the movement of tectonic
plates, volcanic eruptions, and dramatic geologic formations, Berg's work offers a new
perspective within the context of contemporary landscape and the sublime. The
integration of geometric forms within her compositions and the reoccurring imagery of
pyramids emerging from dark rifts in the earth create a visual framework that
symbolizes a convergence of the human and natural worlds. Integral to the work is
Berg's own personal experiences and physical presence in the landscapes she depicts.
In recent years Berg's artistic practice has expanded beyond her studio and outside into
actual geological landscapes, placing her pyramid sculptures in nature temporarily as
her own form of "portable land art" and documenting this process through photography.
Many of Berg's works also occupy the space between painting and sculpture using
metal mesh, plexiglass shards, and the extension of the painting to the sides of the
canvas to suggest topographies and geologic formations. In her paintings, Berg uses an
adaption of the Renaissance Grisaille technique with acrylics, creating a luminous effect
through many layers of transparent colorful glazes. Through Berg's work and
explorations in various media, she creates a visual tension between danger and beauty
expressing an overall sense of a world constantly in flux. She references her
experiences observing the various stages of eruptions of Kilauea Volcano in Hawaii and
the cycle of destruction and creation of new land as the framework for her own world
view that she expresses in her work. Emanating light and the overall mysterious quality
of Berg's landscapes ultimately offer a sense of optimism and express a primordial and
spiritual connection with the natural world.