INTERVIEW WITH AVA KELIS WRIGHT
Mei Bock, January 2024
Ava Kelis Wright is an artist whose practice spans painting, collage, music, and more. In her own words: “I’m always doing everything. I love all the things.” Ava is a recent graduate of City-As-School High School. She started taking classes at the League through the City-As-School’s partnership with Seeds of the League. During her time as a Seeds Scholar, she was selected to give a speech on behalf of the program at the League’s annual Gala at the MoMA in 2023.
I sat down with Ava to speak about her art practice and journey, as well as her current and upcoming projects, including a video game she is working on with her mom, and her studies for a BFA in Film Media, which she will be starting at New York Film Academy in the fall.
Mei
How are artistic and self expression linked for you?
Ava
I’ve always been creative, since I was born basically. Big and bright colors and big shapes are my thing. My art has looked like me my whole life pretty much, like journaling—that’s how my brain works through things, in colors and visual stuff. So I’m gonna put bright colors on my makeup and my nails and my clothes. My art and me are one: I am my art and my art is me. I’m a Leo so I’m the sun, and my friends are the moon because they like muted dark colors and tones—so we’re opposites.
Mei
Have you always expressed yourself in this way?
Ava
When I was younger I didn’t really care about fashion and clothes—basically anything I thought was too girly. I also grew up modest—-I was Jewish—-so I was wearing dresses. When everything looks the same it’s very boring. But I moved to New York and that’s when I realized “oh, there’s so many options.” That’s when I got into clothes, fashion, and recently, makeup and nails. All my makeup is out there. If I wear all black and dark clothes I’m not myself.
Untitled. Mixed Media.
Mei
Tell me more about the video game you’re working on with your mom.
Ava
We’re early on in the design, pre-pre production. My mom is a writer and a producer so they needed someone who’s more on the visual arts side. My mom tells me what they want things to look like and I put them together by drawing and finding things on Pinterest to bring the vision to life. The video game takes place in Brooklyn and follows Torres who is a nonbinary kleptomaniac who struggles with severe depression and suicidal ideation. They fall asleep on the train, and are transported to another dimension, where they are on a mission to defeat all these evil demons with the help of spirit guides. All the demons are based on real life issues turned physical. Torres becomes a warrior to fight through all their demons, literally, to get to the end. The instagram is @qingandkweenarthaus
Mei
That connects to your knack for marketing, both with the video game and your own art. Could you talk more about that, for other young people looking to get their art out there?
Ava
All the marketing I learned is either from my mom, because they have a PhD in psychology so they know what they’re talking about, or it’s trial and error. Especially living in New York, you can just find stuff. When I was into clothes with my mom, we would just find pop-ups to go sell stuff at. There were pop-ups in front of Brooklyn Museum called First Saturday. There’s a winter holiday market every year at Atlantic Terminal for small businesses. You just find stuff on TikTok or Instagram, there’s always people looking for something.
Also, just ask. Like, “Can I put this poster up here?” Knowing your audience is also important because if you don’t know your audience, just widespread putting a poster up everywhere or putting a video online is hard. If you know your specific target goal, you just go where they are.
Just keep trying. Don’t quit. A lot of people quit right before they get to what they want. There’s this meme with this guy who is underground mining, and he gets bored and turns around, but he was right next to the diamonds and didn’t know. I think about that all the time.
Untitled. Acrylic paint.
Mei
Tell us about your Cubist portrait, your time at Seeds, and art education throughout your life.
Ava
In fifth grade I went to public school, and we only had good art classes after school. There was one art class every Thursday that no one signed up for, because it was at the same time as the video game class. So, it was just me and Mr. Ramp. He was a real practicing artist, and he taught me one-on-one.
We were doing Cubism portraits for mother’s day, so we did Cubism inspired portraits of our moms as a gift. I was working on mine and I lowkey didn’t like it. Mr. Ramp said, “I love this, this is so good” and I was like “okay, whatever you say, girl.” I gave it to my mom and they loved it. They are my mom, but my mom would tell me if they didn’t like it, so that meant it’s good. A year or two passed. My mom’s partner worked at a clothing brand, and as a gift for my birthday he printed that painting on a T-shirt. I thought it was such a cool, unique gift. It was my birthday so we were walking around, out and about in New York, and everyone was looking at my shirt. Like 40 people go “I love that shirt, where’s your shirt from.” Eventually we started putting it on sweatshirts, and we sold them in his store, and that’s how I got into clothing design
My whole life I’ve been doing art education wherever I can. When I was little, living in Ohio, every summer I did art camp. There I did painting, I did sculpture, I wanted to do everything.
When I moved here I had some classes during school hours. I was on art Youtube, trying to teach myself, reading a lot of books, just getting it where I could. Then I got to City-As and it was more of a creative art school. Everyone said there’s this internship at the Art Students League that our students are doing, I think you would really like it.
Mei
Which classes did you take at the League?
Ava
I took watercolor with Frank Webster. I liked it, but figure painting wasn’t really my style of art. Then I joined James Little’s abstract painting class.
Mei
You want to keep the abstract painting going.
Ava
I do. Through Youtube videos, TikTok, Instagram, practicing in my sketchbook, looking everywhere. Before I came here a lot of it was self-taught. I didn’t have an actual artist to show me “hey, this is how you do it.” Art isn’t taught like that in public school, they just have a degree in teaching art but not in the arts. Most of my schools didn’t even have an art class because a lot of schools cut it out of the program because of budget cuts. I used Youtube and whatever books I could find and just kept figuring it out on my own.
Untitled. Acrylic paint.
Mei
What are the main parts of your art practice?
Ava
Abstract painting, mixed media, I love just putting everything on something. I just got new art supplies for Hanukkah and I’m really excited. Oil pastels, chalk pastels, charcoal, paints, and taping, gluing, collaging and getting whatever I can on the page.
My next goal will be a big abstract painting, on a really big canvas. I’ve never done one before. A lot of the artists that are on Youtube don’t do abstract art, it’s like people and animals, and I used to try to do that. I wasn’t very good at it and I didn’t like doing it. I was like—why am I doing this? I don’t have to. So I just went back to my roots, back to abstract.
Mei
Are there abstract artists that you look up to?
Ava
Basquiat I’ve looked up to for a long time. City-As-School is the school that he went to. I’ve been reading about him forever. Also graffiti street artists, the way graffiti looks, the different textures of paint, textures on a brick wall. I’m looking to learn how to do graffiti as well.
Untitled. Mixed media
Mei
You’re going to film school. Do you see a connection between film and visual art?
Ava
Cinematography is kind of a combination of the two. When I’m behind the camera, it’s like painting with the cameras. You’re talking to the lighting guy—I want the lights to do this, I want this person to be here— and you talk to the sound guy—-the music should be like this. Painting will help me with that because color theory and lighting is a big part of cinematography.
Mei
And you grew up around the excitement of film?
Ava
Recently yes, because my mom started producing two years ago. When we moved here it was for my mom’s job. My mom worked in a corporate office in Manhattan—top of the building kind of thing—they were like I hate this, I want to be creative, so they quit. My mom has always said: if you don’t like it, you don’t have to do it. Obviously if you make a commitment you have to stick it through until you’re done, but if you’re done you don’t have to be something that you’re not.
Mei
What are overall elements you find yourself exploring over and over again?
Ava
I have a lot of colors but I feel like I kind of stick to one shade range: bright neon, bright colors. I feel like in a lot of my pieces you can tell that they’re all by me, because the colors are all together. Sometimes I take really long breaks from painting but I usually always come back to that. There’s some stuff I’ve tried and I’ve just never gone back, but I’ve always painted again.
You can keep up with Ava’s work on Instagram @avakeliss and view her portfolio here https://avakelisportfolio.my.canva.site/
