Meet the artist
Hi, I’m Kelsey.
Artist. Photographer. Storyteller.
Kelsey Rae is an award-winning multidisciplinary artist and photographer based in California’s Bay Area. Working across sculpture, installation, photography, painting, and public art, she explores the relationships between the body, identity, and the spaces we inhabit. Her practice brings together material experimentation, storytelling, and a belief in art’s power to create connection.
Kelsey Rae Thomas earned her MFA from Mills College in 2022 and her BA in Visual and Public Art from California State University Monterey Bay in 2020. Her sculpture, installation, and performance practice examines how family dynamics and social structures shape the body and lived experience. Through staged photography and public projects, she extends those questions into visual narratives and shared spaces. Motherhood has deepened her interest in imagination, storytelling, and community belonging.
Background & practice
Selected CV
Education
MFA, Fine Art — Mills College, Oakland
BA, Visual and Public Art — California State University Monterey Bay
Associate degree, Early Childhood Education — Monterey Peninsula College
Archive
SOMArts Cultural Center, San Francisco — 2021 Murphy & Cadogan Contemporary Art Awards Exhibition; Cadogan Scholarship recipient. Exhibition curated by Kevin B. Chen.
Awards & recognition
Hung Liu Award
Headlands Center for the Arts finalist
Murphy & Cadogan Award and Exhibition, SOMArts, San Francisco
Selected exhibitions & projects
Dublin Utility Boxes; Dublin St. Patrick’s Day Festival Barrels; CSUMB Art Exhibition
California Seltzer Art Fair
A Brief History of the Future documentary; Tree House Art Show; Rebels and Renegades Festival
Caliroots Festival
Nine/Through the Void, Mills College Art Museum; Bay Area Student Shorts Film Festival, Moraga
If A Tree Falls: Art of the Boundary Oak, Bedford Gallery; Dublin Arts Collective Exhibition; GLAMFA Exhibition, Los Angeles
Cultural Quilt and Let’s Face It, Museum of Craft and Design; Who Are You, Sebastopol Center for the Arts
Artist-in-residency program, Monterey
The Offices of, Seaside; Salinas Chinatown Intervention; Site Seven; Sculpture as Art Fashion Show, CSUMB
Public art
Guardian of Dublin: Rooted in Nature — utility box, Dublin Boulevard & Sierra Court; A Barrel of Art — Dublin
Fly Away — utility box, Dublin
SOMArts Cultural Center, San Francisco — Murphy & Cadogan Contemporary Art Awards Exhibition; Endangered Species — collaborative mural, Gilroy; public art mural, Oakland; public art commission, Dublin
Additional professional activity
Apex Art juror, New York; MFA Chronicles podcast
Remote Red Carpet with Christian Siriano; Environmental Affairs Committee newsletter, Monterey
Further reading
Mills College Art Museum · 2022 MFA exhibition ↗