About
Artist Bio
Kaylee Builer is a Milwaukee-based painter studying at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design. She has exhibited at Gray Area MKE and within the city’s DIY gallery scene, where her work often appears alongside local musicians. Working with bold, saturated colors, Kaylee creates paintings that balance the absurd and the beautiful, capturing the intensity of everyday moments. Inspired by artists like Toulouse-Lautrec and grounded in her love of art history, her practice reflects how people cope with the weight of being. Currently, she is exploring the tension between grief and hedonism while participating in the New York Arts Program Studio Residency, where she is also assisting painters Annu Yadav and Kira Greene during her semester off campus.
Artist Statement
My fascination with the world and the people within it fuels my artwork. Through painting, sketching, and writing, I am able to capture the significant and mundane events I witness. The complexities of the human experience amazes me, and through these experiences I act as a filter, interpreting my observations of people through the lenses of more complex ideas. For example, Nietzsche’s idea of the lightness vs. heaviness of existence, the power dynamics at play in relationships, and the small connections strangers make are fascinating to observe and experience. My reflections of these social narratives and philosophical ideas guide my practice.
My work embodies moments of connection between people and documents the world as I interpret it. Drawing is a means of reporting, journaling, and processing my experiences and the significant moments I witness. Through these sketches and studies I am able to draw connections between all that I see and learn. My paintings implore vibrant and surreal color palettes that lean towards abstraction which reflects the intricacies of human behavior. With the complexities each person and moment possesses, an abstract color pallet signals the theory of absurdism reflected in these scenes. Perhaps in the grand scheme of the world these are not significant moments, but are they not still beautiful?
Furthermore, I often explore power dynamics and what it means to hold influence. The control a person has over an individual, crowd, or country fascinates me. By illustrating and presenting these moments I reexamine what it means to exist at this point in time and how people cope with the intensity of being. Through my efforts to truly understand the world and the people I meet, I have found I am able to better understand what it is that motivates and moves individuals. applications. I also gained experience in creating animated videos using Adobe After Effects.