Mike Kelley

Mike Kelley’s (b. 1954; d. 2012) Trauma Images drawings approach memory through a visual language that combines childlike line with psychological intricacy. Kelley used drawing as a generative field where associations could surface freely, allowing charged images to emerge through diagrammatic or schematic forms. In this context, simplicity becomes a vehicle for intensity: each mark contributes to a scene shaped by tension, ambiguity, and the imprint of lived experience.
His drawing practice extends across notebooks, charts, collages, and annotated images, forming a crucial foundation within his larger investigation of subject formation. Kelley developed drawings as cognitive maps, articulating links between education, repression, fantasy, and cultural memory. Text and image frequently intersect, producing hybrid compositions that register thought processes as much as external imagery. The Trauma Images sit squarely within this lineage, offering distilled insights into how memory is processed, stored, and transformed through symbolic shorthand.