Artist Talk with Chelsey Pettyjohn: Play and Experimentation in Artmaking

Join mixed media artist and Art Center faculty Chelsey Pettyjohn as she discusses her experimental approach to art education and artmaking.

With an artistic practice that spans collage, ceramics, drawing, and painting, Chelsey advocates for an experimental approach to art education and creation.

Inspired by Outsider artists, her own experiences as a student, and her work with elementary students, Chelsey encourages trusting the creative process over perfecting techniques. She believes that embracing play and experimentation is essential for nurturing creativity.

By urging her students and peers to reconnect with their natural artistry and explore materials and ideas freely, Chelsey challenges conventional ideas of artistic perfection and encourages us all to embrace everything as an experiment.

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This program is part of the Gilda and Henry Block School of the Arts.

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Instructor

Chelsey Pettyjohn

Chelsey Pettyjohn is a multidisciplinary artist working primarily in paint, sculpture, and collage. Her work engages a specific collection of self-made archetypes and iconography. Themes reveal personal history: childhood fantasies, fragmented dreams, the secrecy of inner worlds. She is interested in the juxtaposition of delicate and grotesque; articulating the human experience in all its innocence and brutality.

She holds a BFA from Parsons the New School for Design, and a BA from Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts. She has shown her work locally and internationally; exhibitions ...

Chelsey Pettyjohn

She holds a BFA from Parsons the New School for Design, and a BA from Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts. She has shown her work locally and internationally; exhibitions include solo shows at Hunter College and Tennis Elbow, as well as group shows at Kapp Kapp, Tiger Strikes Asteroid, and Foxy Production. She lives and works in Red Hook, Brooklyn.