The Cute And The Uncanny: Mike Kelley

Deodorized Central Mass with Satellites, Mike Kelley, 1991/1999.

Mike Kelley’s Deodorized Central Mass with Satellites features stuffed animals sewn into a hanging cluster surrounded by scented “satellites.” What seems playful quickly turns uncanny. The excess of toys and artificial scent evoke buried trauma. Kelley merges cuteness with abjection, using soft, innocent materials to suggest something suffocating beneath the surface.

I have been investigating the tension between the cute and the uncanny. Using soft materials like felt, I aim to evoke tenderness and safety, while introducing unsettling forms that hint at trauma concealed behind beauty. I also relate to the repetitiveness in Kelley’s process—it mirrors my own making, where repetition feels like a ritual of reassurance, softly repeating “it’s okay” even when it isn’t. Kelley’s work demonstrates how abjection can inhabit colorful, comforting materials, encouraging me to further push this contradiction within my own practice.

Kelley’s work aligns with the framework of trauma and affect theory, which also underpins my own practice. We both explore how trauma and vulnerability can be felt through material, texture, and form rather than explicitly narrated which is a key concern of affect theory. The repetitive, soothing acts of making reflect trauma theory’s focus on re-enactment, memory, and healing through embodied processes. Our art does not simply depict trauma, it materializes and transforms it.

MoMA. “Mike Kelley’s Deodorized Central Mass with Satellites.” MoMA (website). Accessed 24 September 2025. https://www.moma.org/calendar/galleries/5663.