Kelly Lingel was born and raised in southern California. From an early age, she knew she loved color and wanted to be an artist. She would spend hours alone painting and drawing. Kelly was fortunate to be exposed to great artwork from a young age. Her mother encouraged her creativity and she and her godmother would take her to art museums and galleries throughout the United States and Europe. As a child, she studied art at the Asian Pacific Art Museum in Pasadena.
Kelly has worked as an elementary and secondary art teacher in the United States, Spain, and Japan where she was exposed to different artists and styles of aesthetics. She has written art curriculum for local school districts in Los Angeles County, and has worked in collaboration with the Los Angeles Music Center to provide migrant students grades 1-12 throughout Los Angeles County a week of working in the arts-visual, dance, and theater.
Kelly is a representational artist who paints in oil in both plein air and the studio. For her, painting is a form of meditation, both challenging and deeply fulfilling. She paints landscapes, still lifes, portraits and figurative works. Kelly has studied with Master Artist Jove Wang, and is influenced by the paintings of Nicholai Fechin, Joaquin Sorolla, Edward Hopper, Henri Matisse, and Claude Monet.
She has exhibited at the Long Beach Museum of Art, the Art in the Garden juried show in Sherman's Gardens, the Palos Verdes Art Center, as well as the California Art Club's Long Beach Bicycle Race Art Show, where her painting was used for the Long Beach City Bicycle Race Home Page and poster. In addition, Kelly won First Prize at the Lake Arrowhead Art and Wine Festival 2018.
“Painting is the way I can best communicate, and when my paintings emotionally connect with the viewer, I feel honored to have made that intimate human connection. I hope that through my paintings I can help others to see the beauty that surrounds us, even in everyday objects. I am grateful that with beauty all around us, there will always be endless inspiration!"
