About Me
Photo credit: Anavi Photography
Artist Statement
My art practice is rooted in the understanding that works of art function as carriers of energy, transmitting subtle forces through material form. Informed by decades of study in physics, astronomy, and spiritual inquiry, I investigate how forces such as intention, love, and memory are embedded in objects and felt by those who encounter them.
I work primarily with paper, building three-dimensional relief sculptures through a variety of texture techniques. I incorporate natural materials like water and soil, collected with purpose from specific and meaningful locations, like Wekiva Springs, a place that has been sacred to me for most of my life. Memories and energy of these places are held within the elements themselves and transmitted into the work.
Through intention and my training in energetic healing, I embed specific energies, like love, joy, wonder, kindness, compassion, gratitude, and peace, into the work as I make it. The finished work radiates these energies.
My practice is in dialogue with Hilma af Klint, Emma Kunz, and Guadalupe Maravilla, whose work engages ritual, spirituality, and the rendering of unseen phenomena into physical form, and with Ana Mendieta, whose work explores the energetic memory of materials and place.My work offers viewers a chance to experience these unseen forces, creating moments of presence, contemplation, and connection.
“My art is grounded on the belief in one universal energy which runs through all being and matter, all space and time.” — Ana Mendieta
ARTISTS ON COUCHES - ARTIST STATEMENT
In 2020, while recovering from a head injury, I meditated daily and kept receiving the same vision: sitting on a couch with other artists, discussing the mysteries of the creative process. That vision became Artists on Couches, a long-term conceptual project exploring creative consciousness.
My paper practice asks: how do I infuse energy into my art so the unseen can be experienced? AOC asks: how do we all experience creative consciousness? Both are investigations into the same invisible forces, just through different mediums. Where my paper work translates energy into physical form through solitary meditation, AOC investigates it through collective voices. I invite artists worldwide to reflect on one question about their creative process and share a photo of themselves on a couch. Each response becomes part of a growing archive, showing patterns of intuition, flow, inspiration, and consciousness emerging across hundreds of individual voices. One practice is material and personal. The other is collaborative and collective. My paper work translates energy into form. AOC translates it into reflection, dialogue, and shared experience. These are two different approaches that investigate the same questions about consciousness and energy.
“The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.” — Carl Sagan
Artist Bio
Kelly Joy Ladd is a visual artist whose practice explores consciousness, energy, and cosmic interconnectedness through paper-based work. Her intuitive approach aligns with transcendental artists like Hilma af Klint and Agnes Pelton. She holds a Liberal Studies degree from University of Central Florida, where she studied physics, astronomy, and eastern philosophy. Her work has been exhibited at Orlando Museum of Art, Mint Museum, and Mennello Museum of American Art. She is a 2025 Florida Prize in Contemporary Art finalist at the Orlando Museum of Art. Artists on Couches emerged from her meditation practice in 2020.