2025
Oil on linen
40 x 30 cm

Kels Coker is an Alaskan painter based in Paris, France. Her work explores the relationship between memory and place, checking the pulse of lived environments. Her process-driven painting practice unfolds either en plein air or from memory, grounded in extended periods of immersion in rural and coastal landscapes shaped by small-scale and subsistence agriculture. From tending livestock in the Loire Valley to spending half a year alone in a cabin on Orcas Island, she seeks out places where land and labour are deeply entwined. Coker works exclusively in oil paint. She builds, stretches, and primes her own cotton or linen canvas and board, often using repurposed, salvaged, or recycled materials to cut down on waste in her practice.