Kelynn Alder

United States, 1959

Kelynn Alder is an artist of Mexican-American descent who describes herself as a “visual essayist with a wanderlust.”  Alder has followed traditional expeditionary methods of working in the field in combination with studio work and she is renowned for her portraits of Aboriginal elders in Australia, tribal leaders in Papua New Guinea, and the Lacandon Maya of the Mexican rainforest.

The artist’s paintings have been described as a marriage between “Mexican muralism and impressionism” and, in addition to painting large-scale canvases in her studio, she has also painted murals in Chiapas, Mexico including at the Na Bolom Museum, a cultural research institute. Alder has been the recipient of sponsorships and residencies from prestigious institutions including The Ella Cabot Lyman Trust and the Instituto Nacional Indigenista de México.  She has also received numerous awards including the 1987 Presidential Award from The School of Visual Arts, Communication Arts Magazine’s 1995 Certificate of Excellence: Portrait of Fred Weisman in “The New Yorker Magazine”, and the Artist in Residence award from the Smithtown Township Arts Council, to name just a few.  The artist’s body of work is extensive and has been shown in countless solo and group exhibitions at important galleries and museums in the US, France, Australia and Cuba.

After receiving her Master of Fine Arts at the School of Visual Arts, Alder’s paintings were featured in Cynthia Maris Dantzic’s 100 New York Painters.  Alder has lectured and conducted art workshops throughout the US and Mexico and she teaches painting at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan.