Kelsey Overstreet's paintings begin where most artists end — with a completed work. She cuts finished canvases apart and sews them back together, sometimes weaving in fragments from earlier pieces. The seam is not a repair. It is where the meaning lives. 

Working across raw canvas, transparent silk, and layered paint, her surfaces hold body, memory, and the natural world in careful tension. Select works incorporate silk painted with shadow, stretched over canvas so the painting shifts with the living light in the room — never static, always becoming. 

“To follow the thread is an act of faith. You can’t see where it’s going. You only know the pull.” 

Kelsey Overstreet holds an MFA (2018) and has maintained an active studio practice for over twenty-five years. Prior to returning fully to painting, she spent three years living and working in Italy, producing hand-printed textiles and clothing — an experience that left a lasting mark on her understanding of surface, material, and the mark a seam can carry. She is based in Carlsbad, California.