MJ Kelly

Born and based in Mexico City, MJ Kelly moves freely between portraits, landscapes, animals, and abstraction. Her paintings draw on the places she has lived and traveled, photographs she has taken, and the shapes she notices in stains on walls or floors. A patch of color can become the beginning of a whole world.

MJ grew up surrounded by art. Her father, painter Phil Kelly, taught her to look closely at the spaces she moves through. She began her own artistic practice in 2015 and has since worked to build a visual language that honors what she learned from him while remaining distinctly hers. Her work has been shown in Mexico and abroad, including at Casa de México in Paris.

Outside the studio, MJ rescues animals, does yoga with her dog, cuts her own hair, and can juggle. Her father called her alfombrita—“little carpet”—because the family covered the floors with rugs to keep her warm while she learned to crawl.

Works at Call Me Lola

MJ’s abstract diptych can be hung horizontally or vertically, letting the two paintings shift their relationship to each other and to the room. That flexibility makes looking at them feel playful: turn the pair, and a new conversation begins.

The third painting captures a friend outside an Airbnb in Italy, where she fell asleep after forgetting her keys. MJ finds beauty and humor in the scene, portraying her friend as peaceful and composed despite the wonderfully chaotic circumstances. Together, the works show her range: from the possibilities of pure form to the intimacy of a story worth remembering.

‍