Every picture tells a story
rowing up on Detroit’s east side, Desiree Kelly watched countless buildings be remodeled during her walks to school. Seeing each structure be torn down only made her want to preserve it — and the history — even more.
Her Islandview neighborhood on Beals Street is also where the renowned local artist and Wayne State University alumna’s love of portraiture was inspired, with the city’s backdrop serving as a major source of inspiration. For Kelly, everything that comes out of her head and leaves through her fingers is Detroit.
“It has truly been a long journey,” said Kelly, 31. “A very authentic, Detroit journey — from growing up on the east side and wondering how I would make it out of that neighborhood. Everything I do is inspired by that environment.”
“My dad’s brother Bobby and his cousin Claudette were both original members of Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, so I think it’s just a natural gravitation,” Kelly said of her love for music. “I’ve always been a part of the arts in some capacity. I was more involved in the performing arts when I was younger but always loved to draw.”
She credits her grandmother with being the first to stoke that love, recalling how they’d stage playful drawing contests against each other. Curiously, Kelly initially wanted to create only in pencil, charcoal, oil and chalk pastels — or, as the woman who would go on to become a renowned painter put it, “everything I could use to avoid painting.”
As Kelly observed, “I didn’t get into oil painting until college. I’ve always created portraits, but never been interested in landscapes or anything.”
Kelly — who admits that, at first, she wasn’t too keen on even attending art school — began her studies in the James Pearson Duffy Department of Art and Art History with a concentration in graphic design. She decided to take oil painting classes merely as part of the course load, unaware that the medium would inspire her signature mix of traditional oil painting and street art.
But that wasn’t her only discovery while at Wayne State.
“In addition to finding an appreciation and love for oil painting, what I appreciated the most about attending WSU was being in the heart of the city,” she said. “I also participated on the fencing team and traveled across the country for tournaments, and started an organization called Anti-Drug Wayne during my sophomore year.”
Despite her reservations about art school, Kelly’s choice to attend Wayne State was a decidedly easy one, given that she’d been visiting the university since she was a toddler. “My mom went to Wayne State, and it is ultimately why I ended up here,” she said. “She would take me to class with her at State Hall. I remember riding the elevators at Old Main when I was 3 or 4.”
After graduating from WSU in 2011 with a bachelor of fine art, Kelly landed a job as graphic designer at the Detroit Metro Times newspaper, where she’d interned during her senior year — a gig she had first learned about after bumping into the publication’s production manager while selling her work at the Ferndale DIY Festival. She continued in the publication business while also working the festival circuits.
Three years after leaving Wayne State, Kelly began to leave deeper impressions on the local art scene. In 2013, she was named a resident artist at the Red Bull House of Art (now RedBull Arts) in Eastern Market. One year later, she began to extend her work from canvas to mural, crafting her 42-foot-tall masterpiece, “Abe in Shades” — a portrait of President Abraham Lincoln sporting kaleidoscope glasses. Kelly confessed that she wasn’t quite sure how to pull off the project when she began, but the piece, painted in the city’s Grand River Creative Corridor, would become her most recognizable and iconic work.
“The subject of Abe Lincoln represents money and intellect, while the glasses represent endless possibilities,” Kelly said. “The colors in the glasses represent diversity, wealth and future. [Detroit is] a hip and cool place on one hand and, on the other, has a strong foundation of local businesses and intellectuals. I think ‘Abe in Shades’ defines this city.”
Since then, Kelly has become a seasoned muralist, with her art going up in several iconic locations around the city, from an Eastern Market mural featuring Aretha Franklin to large portraits along the outside of the Alger Theatre on the city’s east side. Kelly’s work also can be seen hanging in Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan’s office in the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center, Footlocker Power Store and Kuzzo’s Chicken & Waffles, to name a few.
Her work has also found its way into commercial marketing campaigns, helping promote everything from Pepsi and Pandora Jewelry to Converse and Puma and Beaumont Health and Atwater Brewery.
Throughout her rise, Kelly’s art has continued to evolve. She has taken to adding more artifacts and mixed media to her portraits, creating pieces that are more 3D than some of her previous works. Following the untimely death of Kobe Bryant in early 2020, Kelly created a portrait celebrating the late basketball player’s life that included tiny jerseys, replica championship rings, a bejeweled gold crown and numerous newspaper clippings.
“I think my style has always been used or seen within my work, but it certainly has become refined throughout the years,” Kelly said. “This happened when I got more serious about producing artwork. At the point where I was painting more frequently and selling work is where I zoned in. Now, I paint every day, multiple times — it’s effortless at this point. It’s as natural as anything else that I do.”
After the murder of George Floyd, Kelly and eight other artists from across the country were contacted by The Washington Post to share their thoughts on racial inequality and social justice through words and art. The Post posed one question: “Is America at a point of reckoning?”
Kelly’s artwork, created in direct response to the death of George Floyd at the hands of police in May 2020, depicts Floyd looking over his shoulder with “Black Lives Matter” written on his hat. The canvas is an actual stop sign, which Kelly meant as a very literal “stop racism, stop social injustice, stop killing us.” An arrow to the right on the piece represents a need to change direction.
“These things have constantly been a concern in the Black community. There were a lot of different thoughts that ran through my mind when I was reading the news that riots broke out,” Kelly wrote in response to the Washington Post query. “Most of all, I felt that I needed to do something. I didn’t only relate as a Black person, but as a Black mother. I felt compelled to use my voice to make a real difference, so when the protests and riots started happening, that was the turning point. I felt like I needed to do something more. I wanted to peacefully protest but make a very loud powerful statement. I wanted to use my voice as an artist to amplify this message.”
Most recently, Kelly was commissioned by the Detroit Pistons to paint and re-envision 3D representations of the NBA team’s name. For the team’s celebration of Black History Month in February, Kelly incorporated figures such as Frederick Douglass, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., and Barack and Michelle Obama. In March, the Pistons asked Kelly to create the letters using inspiration from Women’s History Month, which she did with an assist from her 3-year-old daughter, Isabella.
“My daughter’s usually around when I’m painting, so it’s just natural to have her even throw out ideas sometimes. I really enjoyed having her put her hands on it and be part of this celebration of women,” Kelly said during a video promoting the work. “She gets to watch me paint every day and be influenced, be an artist and feel like she could be a participant in life.”
Kelly’s work is also in permanent collections of museums. She was commissioned in 2018 by the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History to create a one-of-a-kind 4-by-6 painting of Aretha Franklin for its permanent collection. The piece contains artifacts including a Cadillac hood ornament, original vinyl records and sheet music. Kelly’s work can also be seen at the Flint Institute of Arts.
While her artistic vision has garnered her local, national and international attention, Kelly has never forgotten where she comes from — and her work will always arise from a combination of elements, she said, that have been influenced by her Detroit upbringing.
Said Kelly, “The edginess and grit of Detroit, having to outwork or find alternative ways to get things done — I’ve always thought about the city as the rose that grew out of the concrete.”