Biography
Ariel Kessler is a mixed media artist living in Watertown, Massachusetts who works in a variety of media from painting, collage, printmaking, and ceramics.
At a young age Ariel developed a fondness for painting, printmaking, sculpture and photography and was mentored by Boston-based artist, Evelyn Berde. She built her first darkroom at twelve years of age. While using her late father’s Nikon F, she took photographs wherever she went. At eighteen, she moved to New York City to attend the School of Visual Arts. There she became enraptured with small camera, street-like photography. After two years focusing on this style, she moved back to her hometown of Boston to attend the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, where she was mentored by some of the masters of the large-format camera and was given the opportunity to work with the infamous Polaroid 20×24 camera. She graduated with her BFA in 2010. She has studied advanced alternative photographic processes in Santa Fe, New Mexico and Savannah, Georgia. In 2019, Ariel was invited to be an artist in residence at the Fish Factory Creative Centre of Stöðvarfjörður, Iceland.
Ariel Kessler has exhibited her work all over the United States, and internationally in Mexico and Japan.
Her work can be found in public and private collections throughout the world.
Artist's Statement
Ariel Kessler's work encompasses lively, colorful imagery in a whimsical world. Inspired by stories and memories. Combining traditional art mediums with an emphasis on the "mark of the hand". Ariel is a collector of stories. Her mixed media art encompasses lively, colorful imagery in a whimsical world.