About Shellie Jett

Shellie has been making art ever since she was caught coloring on freshly painted walls at the age of two. That early experiment in “nontraditional canvas use” may not have been commissioned, but it marked the beginning of a lifelong creative practice.

Today, she is a mixed media and multidisciplinary artist based in Cary, NC. After earning a Bachelor of Science in Merchandising with minors in Business and Art from East Carolina University, she settled in the Raleigh area, drawn to the constant stream of visual and creative inspiration in everyday life.

Her practice is driven by exploration and a resistance to monotony, often moving across a wide range of materials and approaches. Guided by curiosity and a fair amount of stubbornness, she works with the belief that limitations are not fixed rules, but starting points.

From the Artist

My art over the last several years has been grief-driven after several losses, most significantly the death of my mother. Since then, creating became less about producing perfect pieces and more about finding a way to keep going.

I work in mixed media because no single material seems capable of carrying the emotional contradictions I’m interested in. I experiment with paint, fiber, found objects, clay, and texture, often combining materials that resist each other as much as they connect. The process can feel controlled one moment and chaotic the next.

While my work is rooted in personal loss, it is not solely about sadness. I am interested in the tension between heaviness and humor, beauty and disorder, stillness and unrest. My pieces ask what remains after loss, not just what disappears.