Chelsea Best Modern Art
"The idea is not to paint the thing exactly, but the way it made me feel.”
Chelsea Best is a multidisciplinary artist whose paintings are studies of surfaces as they relate to time, evolving and growing richer as they age. Her work attempts to showcase how time transforms and elevates, revealing great beauty and depth in objects otherwise ordinary.
Large scale abstract paintings are the freest form of expression Chelsea has found. The process is as much physical as it is visual, a constant practice of discovery: of oneself and the world around them. Layers are built to be stripped away, a nostalgic collage that marries one’s inner and outer landscapes, everchanging as they are.
Originally from Kansas City, Missouri, Chelsea grew up dancing to her mother's piano and reading plays with her father when she wasn’t climbing trees or painting Pollock blobs while watching Bob Ross. Chelsea’s eventual performance career allowed her to travel to various corners of the world which then afforded her the opportunity to deepen her yoga studies in Matapalo, Costa Rica. Her wanderlust and spiritual inquisitiveness lend inspiration to her lifelong journey as an intuitive painter.
Chelsea lives in a teeny Upper West Side apartment with her husband, Rory, where she currently paints on the bedroom wall, because “where there is no space, one must carve it out for herself.”