ARTWORK BY
KELLY RENE 
JELINEK

Kelly explains the inspiration behind her artistic style and the background of her upholstered faux taxidermy animals:

"When I was a child, I spent most of my time with my nose in fairytale books. I absolutely marveled how the impossible was made possible in those stories: animals could talk, trees could move, and the most mundane of objects could become something magical and important. I wished that real life was like a fairytale.

This longing that I had as a child has stayed with me through the years, and I find that I am constantly trying to make "real life" more magical and extraordinary through the artwork that I create. The faux taxidermy art that I create is a great example of this: something traditional and commonplace is transformed into something new and exciting. I find that this quote from Edgar Allen Poe pretty much sums up everything that I am about: "There is no exquisite beauty... without some strangeness in the proportion."

As a someone who grew up in rural Wisconsin, I became thoroughly accustomed to seeing taxidermy deer and game mounts - I thought of them as standard items of household decor. Even when I was a small child they never scared or disgusted me -  if anything, they fascinated me. That fascination stayed with me into adulthood, and has inspired the artwork that I make today. When I was a teenager, I fell in love with old upholstery and would often come home from flea markets and thriftstores with old chairs for me to experiment on. Later on, when I was in college, the two interests happened to mesh and that's how the first of my upholstered animals were born."