Sterling Kelly
BA (Hons) Fine Art, 2022
About me
- Self-employed Artist/Musician/Model/Creator
- BA (Hons) Fine Art, 2022
ABOUT MY CAREER
I was scouted on Instagram to model for the Converse x Liverpool Football Club fashion campaign launch. The campaign aimed to spotlight diverse, creative young Liverpool FC fans and our creative practices. I was also featured in GUAP Magazine with an interview about my artistic practice as part of the campaign. The platform I have been given from the campaigns and interviews has allowed me to work as a self-employed artist and model over the past year.
Since the campaign launch, I have been involved with both the Spring/Summer and Fall/Holiday drops of the Converse x Liverpool FC collaboration, as a model for the Spring/Summer launch, and then as both a model and assisting with creative direction for the Fall/Holiday campaign. I am also part of the Converse ‘All Stars’, a community of creatives and influencers working with Converse on specific projects. Outside of my work with Converse, I am now a self-employed artist and musician, playing bass for queer-feminist punk band The Red Stains.
My whole art school experience boiled down to teaching myself Situationist tactics, how to break a broken system, and channelling my fury into something tangible: sculptures, writing. I guess the most important skill I’ve learned is to hang onto myself, my roots, my ethics, my morals no matter what. The art world is a strange, exclusive place, all white walls and free wine and social codes I never was taught to follow. Not fitting into it, and not even trying to, has been my strongest source of power.
MY TOP TIP FOR STUDENTS IS
Do it on your own terms. Don’t abandon your roots, your past, your sense of who you are. The art world’s a scam. You can choose to play the game – or you can choose to live outside of it. Live true to yourself and your morals, and just see where you end up.
I’M INSPIRED BY
I am inspired by the ones who didn’t fit in. The ones who didn’t get the privilege of understanding the social codes, who never got taught the unspoken rules. The awkward ones, the weird ones, the angry ones, the ones who had to fight to be heard. I am inspired by the anti-stars, the ones that shine so brightly, shriek so loudly, they’re impossible to forget.
WHY I LOVE MANCHESTER MET
All the shopping trolleys I collected.