KELLY HARTIGAN GOLDSTEIN
Southern Californian artist, Kelly Hartigan Goldstein, works in rumination and daily newspaper headlines. In 2018 distressed by incessant and politically divided news cycle, and pulled by demands of family life, she turned to meticulous hand-cut newspaper collage to reconcile larger debates with compositions from life’s individual moments.
Southern Californian artist, Kelly Hartigan Goldstein, works in rumination and daily newspaper headlines. In 2018 distressed by incessant and politically divided news cycle, and pulled by demands of family life, she turned to meticulous hand-cut newspaper collage to reconcile larger debates with compositions from life’s individual moments.
Originally from the Pine Barrens of New Jersey, she graduated with a B.A. from the University of Michigan Art School, and immediately embarked on a 15-year career in Hollywood film advertising, animation, and effects. Select credits: movie posters: The Usual Suspects, Bottle Rocket; digital animation: Godzilla (1997); Final Fantasy the Spirits Within; Polar Express, Matrix 2, the Lion the Witch & the Wardrobe, Beowulf, & Watchmen. A multidisciplinary artist, she also painted children’s murals, volunteered her graphic design skills, created an LLC to teach visualization at the local elementary school, and performed in local theatre. In 2018-19 her large scale banner and holiday palette designs were selected for the permanent collection and seasonal display in Laguna Beach.
A practical and self-sufficient artist first, she never attended a painting or printing class in college. In 2015 she found her local painting mentor, Javier Alvarez, and committed to a disciplined study of composition and value. It was during exercise 17 of this rigorous fundamental study she found her current process of “painting” with only cut newspaper. There are works within work as writing becomes the composition’s co-star. Found poetry is revealed within strict limitations of the newspaper’s typography, style and language, and then destroyed in the application to the canvas. New visual solutions are forced as the finite resources of one single newspaper run out.
Kelly enjoys being lost in the visual and political puzzles merging her experience in dynamic film composition and traditional art with her love of wordplay and challenging discourse. Currently a member of Southern California Women’s Caucus of Art and the Los Angeles Art Association she has been actively showing in local and national group shows while connecting with an artistic community. For the remainder of 2025, Kelly is looking forward to focusing more in the studio and continuing to build on this body of work and put it to good use.
In the Fall of 2024 Kelly donated over $1600 to VoteForward.org in an open Election Edition print sale with 100% of proceeds benefiting non-partisan voter outreach and education via letter writing.