Khalif Kelly

Khalif Kelly holds a BFA in painting from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is currently enrolled in the MFA program at Yale University. His paintings use a vivid palette and cartoonish figuration - simultaneously evoking storybook illustration and racial caricature - to depict children whose playtime is disrupted by acts of malice. In Kelly's scathing vision, greed and cruelty crystallize in the early stages of life; his canvases are elliptical narratives of childhood trauma.