Kele McComsey makes work from the things that surround him — forms encountered by chance, extracted from their context, and redeployed in ways that give them new weight. His practice spans photography, pen and ink, oil paint, encaustic, and etching, held together not by medium but by process. How a work is made carries as much meaning as what it is made of. His Mound Series begins with one of humanity's oldest architectural gestures — the earthen mound, raised by ancient cultures as burial site, ritual space, and celestial marker — and presses it against its modern equivalent: the landfill. Where ancient mounds were sealed to preserve, modern mounds are sealed to conceal, their surfaces dotted with exhaust pipes venting the stench of civilization's excess. McComsey's mounds are intricate, fluid forms — coiling lines that read simultaneously as intestinal and cerebral — portraits of consumption that manage, paradoxically, to be beautiful. Born in 1969 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania into a family of artists and photographers, McComsey earned his BA in Visual Arts and Photography from Pennsylvania State University. His work has been exhibited at Mana Contemporary, 55 Mercer Gallery, Delta Axis Art Center, and School House Art Center, among others. He lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.