Kelly D. Pelka (b. 1972) is a multidisciplinary artist, living in Chicago, IL. Starting at a young age she was interested in the arts, history and science. Her first experiences with creating were inspired by the ample amount of materials from the family run commercial decorating business that started in the basement of her childhood home. Also, she connected with her family roots, as her mom (Polish descent, born in Germany), immigrated to the United States from Germany during the “displaced person’s” movement in the early 1950’s. All of this fueled her curiosity to learn and then express through various media, the ideas of communication, origin, foundation, space and place. She has a BFA in Visual Communications and BFA in Art Education, with additional studies in Photography, Ceramics and Murals. After working as a graphic artist for a few years, she gravitated towards art education, purely by chance. This ended up being a 30 year career, simultaneous to her personal work as an artist and curator. Pelka’s work has been collected and shown worldwide, such as in Singapore, Spain, United States, Norway and Austria. More recently her work was featured on a skateboard collection for UMAverse as well as shown in the publication Thrasher Magazine. Her studio is located inside Mana Contemporary and can be viewed by appointment or during open studio events.