Artist: Kelsey Steuernagel
Exhibition: Adelaide
Media: digital paintings/ illustrations
Gallery: LBSU School of Art, Gatov Gallery East
Website: N/A
Instagram: @kelseynoelart
Kelsey Steuernagel is a senior student in CSULB’s BFA Preproduction program. In this gallery, she worked with other artists to create a collection of Wild-West-meets-Fantasy themed art installations and highlight a lot of the overlapping elements in these larger-than-life ideas.
Kelsey’s piece, titled “Adelaide,” is of a cowgirl wielding a cosmic neon lasso. The cowgirl wears unmistakable western clothing like a cowboy hat and brown dress accompanied by her blonde hair. In addition to the neon aspect of the lasso, the extra terrestrial setting highlights the fantasy element with two moons in the background. The background seems like a barren planet, or a space desert accompanied with a space cactus.
When I asked Kelsey what was on her mind when creating this piece, she talked about blending these two classic genres together to make something fresh and new. Her greatest goal was to create, not a combination, but a blend of these two. Her efforts are shown in the overlap of not only big elements like the moons and cowboy hat, or the space setting and elf ears, but the added element of cosmic neon to a lasso shows how in depth she went to merge the two ideas into something all its own.
While I’m not the biggest fan of western or fantasy films, I love the premise of this piece. Blending two classic ideas that are old and thoroughly explored, and creating something that seems fresh and new and, most importantly to me, unfamiliar, is something I have admiration for. I think this is how we create new ideas in all aspects of thinking, and the fact it’s explored here has my interest. Kelsey was kind and excited to share with me her work and the ideas behind it, which added so much more energy to my experience viewing it.
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