Featured Artist Kelli N. Scott

Artist Kelli N. Scott presents a collection of primitive folk art paintings that captures a deep sense of culture and history. Find more of her portfolio on her website.

 

 

I grew up in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, in a small rural community called Ferrum, Virginia. I spent my childhood exploring the woods and watching the mountains fade into the distance. Creating has always been second nature to me—I’ve been drawing, painting, and making things out of scraps for as long as I can remember.

 

 

I took art lessons as a young girl and went on to study Studio Art and Comparative Religions in college—art to explore expression, and religion to understand what moves us.

 

 

Through the seasons of my life—career, marriage, motherhood—creativity was a steady thread. But during the pandemic, everything shifted. Like many, I found myself searching for deeper meaning.

 

 

That’s when I pulled a banjo out of the closet—literally. My husband had given it to me years before, knowing how much I loved old-time music, but with young kids, I never had the chance to learn.

 

 

One day in April 2020, I felt a powerful urge to pick it up. At 45, I taught myself to play. It was transformative and deeply spiritual. I dove into traditional American old-time music, learning tunes by ear, researching their origins, and discovering that the story of the banjo is also the story of America. The more I learned, the more it found its way into my art.

 

 

My paintings began to respond to the music. Each tune became a spark for a visual story, sometimes inspired by lyrics, sometimes imagined intuitively. I use expressive marks and raw, primitive lines to echo the rough beauty of old-time music. I want my viewers to feel first, before they think about what they are viewing.

 

 

Much of my imagery is rooted in memory and place: mountains, barns, houses, women and children. They are symbols of belonging, story, and self. My work has a primitive, folk quality because I want it to feel lived-in and felt, not intellectualized. I believe art, like music, should reach straight for the heart.

 

 

Today, my paintings and banjo playing are deeply connected. Both are acts of devotion, both tell stories. Sharing them feels like sharing home. That, to me, is the whole point.

Kelli N. Scott invites you to follow on Instagram.

 

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