Kelsey Boncato

𖦹 flow loop with footage from a hike last fall #animation #illustrator #nature #drawing #art

𝙏𝙪𝙩𝙪𝙗𝙞 𝙣𝙞 𝘽𝙖𝙗𝙖𝙮𝙡𝙖𝙣 (𝘿𝙞𝙬𝙖𝙩𝙖𝙣𝙜 𝙃𝙖𝙣𝙜𝙞𝙣), 2026  Oil on canvas 18 x 24 in I’ll be sharing a preview of my work that I’ve been making during my fellowship! ⊹ ࣪ ˖ Come this Saturday 5/16 to Baryo HIFI @baryoent in Historic Filipinotown LA on Beverly Blvd 3-8pm~ a cultural block party featuring artists, musicians/djs, food, craft market, and community workshops. I’m grateful to be in the group show, to exhibit with other Filipinx artists is rare also wild that my parents were teens hanging out in these exact streets sa 1970s ya ta 🥲🤎 see you! ⏰May 16 2026 3-8pm 📍At the sarisarimarket lot (next to Unidad Park on Beverly) @sarisaristudio Curated by @tambayancollective Concept by @step0nme

🖤 from march opening weekend “animal, vegetable, nor mineral” x “ultimate days” congrats my pinsan @miljohnruperto and @curatormaggie at @cantorarts x @mspfoundation for putting on a fantastic show, celebration and exhibition publication and to all the other collaborators too ~so inspiring! 💐 #miljohnruperto

Announcing the selected artists for the 2026 AAPI Emerging Artist Fellowship — Armaan Mumtaz @armaanmumtaz Kelsey Boncato @celestial_kels Lucy Mu Li @lucy_mu_li and X (studiox.art) This year, we transform the classification of the “emerging” artist into the submerging. Submerging into our oceans, our sleeping dreams, our grief and decolonial work as technologies for reclaiming the erotic — the aliveness experienced beyond the human flesh. As artists, organizers, and activists, our tri-pronged multiplicity will continue to resist the de-funding of arts in San Diego. We are the culture preservers and makers, and our art is needed. Our fellows will work alongside artist-curator @hamsalefae and our visiting artist-facilitators: @songhafromearth @buimonster @tsohilbhatia to culminate for a group show in July 2026 on Kumeyaay land. Big hugs to our sponsors @prebysfound and collaborators for inspiring this fellowship to continue 🫂

🖼️ #artist #frame #contemporaryart

2/28 last day to see our show! 11-6PM at @givehopestudios 3370 e. olympic blvd los angeles @tambayancollective maraming salamat 🤎🤎 install of visions and dreams vol. 1-8 (moon phase flip book), and paintings: queen of cups (shell mirror); spirit pool (banyan tree) #painting #art #contemporaryart #losangeles

THIS THURSDAY! 2/26 6-9PM boyle heights la very excited to be part of this group show ~ i’ll be showing a few new paintings and video 💅🏽🤎📽️ excited to see you all 1. installing with @damn__danyo 2. the distance we carry show flyer 3. projector peek of flip book animation 4. close up detail of painting 5. groovin to loving you cover “Kumusta na kayo! Tambayan in collaboration with Give Hope Studios is delighted to announce our new exhibition The Distance We Carry. Opening Reception : Thursday, February 26th from 6pm-9pm / open to all / no RSVP needed Location : Give Hope Studios 3370 East Olympic Blvd A Filipino American art exhibition that reflects on boundaries, memory, and the invisible weight of diaspora. This exhibition brings together works that examine what it means to live between the Philippines and the United States and between inheritance and reinvention, rupture and resilience. The artists navigate histories shaped by colonialism, labor, family separation, and cultural persistence. The “distance we carry” is not only geographic but it is emotional, historical, and intergenerational. It lives in language, in gesture, in food, in photographs, in stories half-remembered and retold. Join us as we gather in community to honor the complexity of Filipino American identity and the ongoing work of remembering. Featured Artists Clarisse Abelarde | @clarisse.artist Kel Aranas | @mikkelaranas Edmund Arevalo | @edmundarevalo Kelsey Boncato | @celestial_kels Gerin Del Carmen | @gerindelcarmen Rimski Chua | @rimskichua Mimi Doyo | @mimidoyo Tristan Esmino | @tris.tris.tristan John Yoyogi Fortes | @jy4tes Carol Anne McChrystal | @carolannemcchrystal Maryrose C. Mendoza | @maryrose.c.mendoza Brian Paulkuba | @brianpaulkuba Willis Salomon | @willisthegorilla Mark Wood | @77buzz_ @givehopestudios @kuya_istilo @timmytwo_tone DJ spinning @ms_januarrrry On View February 26-27th By appointment on the 27th” #contemporaryart #losangeles #boyleheights

𝘝𝘪𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘋𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘮𝘴 (𝘝𝘰𝘭. 7), 2025 Graphitint, watercolor pencil, ink 5.5 x 5.5in. My art practice consists of my daily sequence drawings from my heavy dream world, translating both the mundane and the extraordinary ~patterns, songs, voices, texts, places, figures, animals, and plants. These intimate sketchbooks carry raw dream narratives that later become more rendered works exploring time, emotion, the sacred and alternative spaces. My ongoing practice is informed by precolonial Philippine seers and contemporary dreamwork, shaped through the sensitive body, and memory as nature. I will be sharing more previous sketchbooks soon ✨ ✦ Highlighted boards brief descriptions: 2 - dad’s work memory, woman motorcycle accident, waiting room hospital, was told that my mother/grandmother had passed, writing a love letter to her, her spirit on the left of me, she’s smiling 3 - close up of moon phase flip book animation 4 - in friend’s cabin watching her family return in snow, peering into a white box of earthy material, trail of ants on door, a portal to ant trail in my kitchen ceiling 5 - invitation to the night, energy attraction, white cauldron with 2 siblings, their mix explodes leaving ash, a father tells his daughter mother’s passed, she’s still there but he can’t see her, i see her grief soul pain as she’s missing her left eye, hexagonal texture pulsating eye and chest 6 - split mirror on ceiling and floor, symmetry of greens and earth 7 - angel guide team together, a wall, breaking the wall with rainbow light 8 - my reflection in mirror, my neck was extra long, and i was mixed with my late maternal grandmother #art #artist #ancestral #sketchbook #contemporaryart

𝘘𝘶𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘊𝘶𝘱𝘴 (𝘚𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘭 𝘔𝘪𝘳𝘳𝘰𝘳), 2025 Oil on canvas 18 x 24in. The painted image is my left eye peering into a shell mirror locket held by my left hand. From my 𝘝𝘪𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘋𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘮𝘴 𝘷𝘰𝘭. 6 (1st frame in slide 9), an ongoing series of vivid scenes from my daily dreamworld. I titled this after Nakatatanda ng Balat or Elder of Shell, a tarot card iteration from Kapwa deck by Pilipinx artist-activist JL Umipig. The archetype of Queen of Cups is an intuitive leader with water doubled as elemental energy of nurturing both the bodies of water within the self, and in others as well. Around the time of this particular dream, messages were clear surrounding my experiences of familial relations and hidden grief emotions. This particular form or channel of my inner sight is an integral part of my process and art making. I’m interested on how this hand pose is a gesture of navigation, like holding a compass, orb or energy ~as well as how a locket mirror case carries an intimate moment, treasure, or reflective part of vision; a slip in time. And lastly, how throughout histories, the remarkable quality of a single isolated eye is so striking and piercing, while the feminine is the mighty intuitive shell actively holding and protecting. 🖤 happy new moon 🌚🦂 #art #artist #contemporaryart #painting #oilpainting #process #kelseyboncato #drawing

Spirit Pool (Banyan Tree), 2025 Oil on canvas 48 x 36in. In Philippine culture, the Balete is a type of strangler fig tree (a tree replacing its host), one that is said to house nature spirits. Part of my current series, 𝘞𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘗𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘴𝘴 (𝘋𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘮 𝘚𝘦𝘦𝘳), I composed this painting from a dream: the pov of seeing myself back floating and listening to a voice on the pool’s connectivity and healing potential. I think of how sacred Water is, and as initiation to surrender~ from the womb’s fluid environment, to the water we hold in our bodies as vessels on land. When I float in the cool river, my nerves are finally calm~ the constant pressure on my body is lifted, and the cusp between heaviness and lightness is thin. This image is invitation to that portal of the serene, and what may come through that calmness. Other elements, such as the ground orchids, dragonflies, and dalmatian jasper-fluorite necklace are from my other dream sequences, which are woven together here in the single plane, framing the pool’s subject. Between the strangler ficus’ large grounding body and its layered roots reaching down into the water, another kind of anchor arises~ an archetype that bridges the circular motion of the image and another sense of time. #painting #oilpainting #contemporaryart #artist #kelseyboncato #dreams #art

𝘝𝘪𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘋𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘮𝘴 (𝘝𝘰𝘭. 6), 2025 Aquarelle pastel, watercolor pencil, ink 5 x 5in. Animation of my last dream sketchbook, vol. 6 ~the right bottom corner shows the progression of the moon phases. My practice involves daily sequence drawings of my vivid dream world where I trace obscure patterns, unraveling insights to the inner/outer worlds within days, months to years ~making parallels to multiple realities. From here I transmute the raw and loose subconscious narratives, to more rendered images on time, emotion, and alternative spaces. My research is ongoing combining precolonial philippine seers, contemporary dreamwork, and dysautonomia (my chronic neurological disorder) which has opened the possibilities of collective consciousness, art, and nature. I’ll share more previous sketchbooks soon ✨ Slides to the right are selected boards: 2 ~ water vision to gut, a flow map unblocked 3 ~ a secret temple, rabbit and parrot, select a potion 4 ~ white embroidery face left sleeve, select a drum 5 ~ psychic shared dream, woman drowning in shadow, an orca’s breath, cleared, drawing his resting face #art #artist #dreams #kelseyboncato #contemporaryartwork #sketchbook #process #grandwatertrine

𝘔𝘰𝘰𝘯 𝘉𝘳𝘪𝘥𝘨𝘦 (𝘞𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘓𝘪𝘭𝘺), 2025 Oil on canvas 18 x 24in. 1. moon bridge (water lily) painting 2. detail, self portrait submerged in meditation and water 3. detail, lily pads 4. the canvas edge 5. process, sketch from my 𝙑𝙞𝙨𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝘿𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙢𝙨 daily storyboards; frame 1 6. process clip before reworking, i start my paintings with lighting dried guava leaves (bayabas). a cleansing blessing into studio flow. #painting #oilpainting #art #artist #contemporaryartwork #kelseyboncato #dreams #process #bayabas