Artist Statement/Cierrah Kelly/

Cierrah Kelly 

 I am an illustrator who’s based in Bayonne, NJ. My illustrations draw heavily on graphic novels, eastern animation, and western animation. My goal is to tell high fantasy and surreal stories in my art that serve as allegories of current history and the political/societal climate. The panels themselves feature inkwork, graffiti-inspired typography, and vibrant pops of color. I strive to take the comics I read as a child and flip them on their head, giving them a style that fits my vision and overall feel. In my work presented, it’s a high-fantasy punk fantasy of a dystopian society in a world that revolves around a death game that has gone global. The purpose of the comic is to be absurd and enthrall the viewer with its madness, in a way that distracts them from the real issues being discussed. The reasoning is that when comics, books, movies, shows, music, etc., address these issues, everyone glosses over them and gives them a different meaning by focusing only on the action parts of the series. It’s the mentality “you don’t want to hear me, you just want to dance.”