I am Courtney Lee Kelly, oil painter, illustrator, toy designer, photographer and graffiti artist continuing to live homeless in Seattle.

My artwork has to do with awareness, intuition, conscious and cognitive thought, honesty, truth and memory. I became aware of Alzheimer's in my family at a young age when I met my great grandmother back east in New York. From then on I made a points to preserve in memory moments of my life in great detail in order to recount them later.

The making of a memory is similar to the fundamental steps in the creative process which are illumination, incubation, evaluation and verification. Conscious awareness, unconscious cognition and empirical knowledge are all called upon to make memories.

My paintings are a multitude of narrative experiences layered one on top of another by painting my recounted memories as life unfolds in real time. I periodically take a photograph of the painting in progress as it morphs into a new narrative that is being pondered by my conscious mind.

To photograph a moment of the paintings ever changing imagery is like the way photographic memory will bring visual excerpts to mind of a experience that was committed to memory through conscious perception in real time. Memory's is your honestly perceived truth of every unfolding experience of your life.

I believe creativity comes from accessing the quiet mind in a sustained here and now state of perception.

~Courtney Lee Kelly