Aura

Kelly McKernan is an independent artist based in Nashville, Tennessee, USA. They graduated with a B.F.A. in 2009 from Kennesaw State University in Georgia and have been a full time artist since 2012. Original watercolor and acryla gouache paintings are created for galleries, private commissions, and their online store where fine art prints and other products are also sold. In addition to maintaining a large social media following, Kelly shares tutorials and teaches workshops, travels across the US for events and comic-cons, and also creates illustrations for books, comics, games, and more. As of 2023, Kelly is a professor of illustration at Nossi College of Art in Nashville, Tennessee.

Kelly's personal work is primarily informed by their journey as an artist and human. Their art explores their personal evolution of an ever-shifting identity, informed by the sexuality and gender spectrums, motherhood, childhood trauma, escaping a religious cult, pregnancy loss and abortion, depression, divorce, neurodivergence, and chronic illness. All of this weaves itself into the quiet narrative of self-exploration behind Kelly's vibrant and ethereal paintings.