Kellie Colemon: Alchemy 

Sept 23 - Nov 7, 2024

Artist Talk: Nov 7, 2024 @ noon

Art gallery picture

ALCHEMY 3: The Moment(s), a collection of works by Kellie Colemon explores if and how we can truly metabolize pain (ours and others) into purpose. More specifically, the work invites you to pause and consider: 

What can be transformed and what should simply be let go?

Is surrender also a form of survival?

What role is community willing to play in each other's healing?

Works will include mixed media college, abstract works, as well as an interactive installation. The artist includes pieces created during and after her cancer journey, and considers the impact of the medical industrial complex on Black bodies, the stigma of “sickness,” and the notion of health and wellness in our lives. 

Kellie Colemon is a Black, queer interdisciplinary artist, writer, and educator born and raised in Tacoma, Washington. Kellie’s work primarily explores themes of love, loss and longing, with particular attention to how those themes intersect with Black American humanity. Working primarily with mixed media and collage, Kellie’s relationship with art is defined by the metamorphosis that happens when art is a liberatory practice. As Tacoma’s Poet Laureate from 2017-2019, Kellie leveraged her role to experiment with form, incorporating collage and interactive performance into her poetry. She created and curated three Tacoma Summer SOULstice Festivals, an event centering LGBTQ and BIPOC artists. Each of Kellie’s projects is another re-invention and re-imagining of form and technique. Kellie has released two collections of her work, What Us Is and The Art of Naming My Pain, both published by Blue Cactus Press. Sometimes through provocation or confession, other times through belly laughs or tears, Kellie works to celebrate the beauty and power of everyday folk and put some funk into the dread we call survival. 


photo of Helen S. Smith

Helen S. Smith Gallery

The Helen S. Smith Gallery on Green River College's main campus was named in honor of the college Foundation's first President. In addition to being one of the college's founding members, she was known as a strong advocate for the arts in the community.

The gallery is located at the main entrance of the Holman Library, on the Green River College's main campus. It hosts a number of shows each year, featuring the work of students and Northwest artists.

The gallery is currently accepting exhibition proposals.