ABOUT

      J3LLY RED      

Photo by: George Anthony Corchado 

Ne'Chelle Straughter, known professionally as J3LLY RED, is a Miami-based artist whose work explores the intersection of memory, subculture, and Y2K-era design. A graduate of New World School of the Arts with a BFA in Painting, she has expanded her practice into a multi-sensory, mixed-medium exploration of the "visual diet" that shaped her youth.

While rooted in painting, J3LLY RED's practice is a tactile experimentation with textures, sounds, and visuals designed to capture the hyper-saturated essence of the turn of the millennium. Her work—most notably the Poison Candie series—is an act of "eating with her eyes," translating the translucent electronics and "blobject" aesthetics of the early 2000s into large-scale architectural totems that serve as both armor and personal mythology.

Based in South Florida, her work has been exhibited throughout the Miami art scene. Following several successful group showcases, she completed her landmark solo exhibition, The Bear Trap, on Halloween 2025 in Wynwood, Miami.

 

 

Artist Statement

 

Poison Candie is a visual synthesis of a childhood spent consuming the hyper-saturated aesthetics of the early 2000s. These J3lly Bears serve as totems of a specific "visual diet"—a mix of Y2K hip-hop fashion, punk rebellion, and the "junk" media of Saturday morning cartoons and fast-food marketing.

Reimagined as playful and stylish blobjects—the retrofuturistic, fluid design language of the turn of the millennium—these characters represent the things I mimicked before I fully understood them. Their palette echoes the translucent, candy-inspired electronics and materials of the era, while their forms act as vessels for the loud fashion and bittersweet comfort of escapism. Each bear is distinguished by unique streetwear and punk accoutrements and metallic, ornamented grins. This hardware serves as both fashionable armor and narrative signifiers for the varying "emotional temperatures" of my memories.

Ranging from intimate studies to commanding large scale architectural presences, the series is a tribute to the era of the "Designer Toy" and the icons who turned subculture into a kingdom. The anatomy of the bears—somewhere between the generous curves of a gummy candy and a visceral, exposed skull—reflects my own journey with body, identity, and catharsis. Blending playfulness with guarded, metallic smiles, they symbolize the evolution from youthful influence to the complex reality of adulthood.

The J3lly Bears are the results of the things I ate with my eyes; they are the Poison Candie.

-j3lly red❤️