ZELLY G.

RAlEIGH, NC

Denzel Green, aka Zelly is a local street artist that specializes pro-black cartoon and abstract together. He is also a virtual artist that put his art on merchandising as well. Zelly 's shows good contrasting, using melanin colors like brown, purple, and blue colors to make dope art pieces.

KLVO:. What was your motivation when it came to your art?

ZLLYG: when I was little about 8 or 9 years old, my mother bought me a lot of art supplies because she had noticed I could draw. Her & our neighbor would talk about how I liked to do art , so one day coming home from school my mother told me our neighbor had a surprise for me. When I got to her house she had a big art kit worth about $300 . Kit was full of castel crayons, markers, watercolor paint etc.

Her kind act was what really motivate to take art serious as far as a hobbie. I didn’t start taking art seriously until a year & a half after I graduated from highschool which was September of 2018. But yea for her to do that with her own money with nobody asking her to do it meant a lot to me,

"I say that because most of the time you already know that some of the people who know will give “some” form of support but when the support is coming from an outsider you feel more accomplished but other people are noticing & not just friends and family."

KLVO: What was your very first painting?

ZLLYG: This Lil Yachty painting was the first thing I posted on my artpage @vaf.platform (Instagram) in the first week of January 2019 .

KLVO: Who was your inspiration and would you like to work with them?

ZLLYG: Before I was painting seriously 2015-2017 I was sewing making men’s designer streetwear so my inspiration mostly came from Virgil Abloh , owner of OFF-WHITE clothing . Him & many others like NIKE, ADIDAS, etc. are still some of my main inspirations when it comes to art/design and I am currently trying to reach out to them now for commission & collaboration.

KLVO: In 2018. Kanye west tweeted, "too much emphasis is put on originality. Feel free to take ideas and update them at your will all great artist take and update.” Do you agree with this comment and why?

ZLLYG: yes I completely agree , if you take a look at my artwork I implement the Fair Use act when creating which means I remake copyrighted cartoons into a parody version with my own style & people flock to them like birds when I drop a release . So yes Kanye is correct %100 on this particular issue.

KLVO: In the future, do you see yourself opening up a shop or extending your business?

ZLLYG: Yes I most definitely plan on extending my business, for right I’m working on expanding my art back on to clothing & pushing in toward furniture & architecture.

I also have another future endeavor but I can speak on it just yet !!!

KLVO: What do you have in store for 2021?

ZLLYG: For the remaining part of 4th quarter 2020 , I’m just relaxing & preparing online sales for 2021 , trying to start off strong this upcoming year, because 2020 covid caught us all off guard so let’s see how we handle 2021 .

IG: ZELLYG_

You can also check out his youtube videos about relationship advice here:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpr4J05j7RnprrRwAScmz8w/videos