From the smallest town of Mapleton, Utah, Raylene Keliiliki’s journey through the many creative fields of art took flight. Raylene Keliiliki is a versatile artist with a passion for dance, visual art, and modeling/makeup. With a background rich in Hawaiian and Japanese culture, she has been taught that through these three creative outlets one is truly able to express herself. Throughout the years, Keliiliki’s creative journey has become a vibrant tapestry woven from these three dynamic fields, each of which informs and enriches the others.

Dance is where her artistic expression truly began. At 10 years old, Keliiliki was touring with the Utah Valley University Cultural Dance Group to Canada and throughout the U.S.A. From this experience, she was able to discover the rhythm, movement, and storytelling traits of dance and is part of her core for creativity. From Polynesian cultural dances to contemporary and urban styles, Keliiliki uses her body to convey stories and emotions that transcend words. She has had the opportunity to showcase these stories through many leadership experiences with groups such as the FACES Dance Company and the Hot Pot Dance Crew. 

In the realm of visual art, Raylene Keliiliki explores the world through figure painting, illustration, and other forms of media. Currently attending Brigham Young University as an Art major with an Emphasis in Administrations, her work investigates ethnicity and femininity within the modern world both from an insiders and outsiders' points of view. Keliiliki paints primarily figures and portraits, manipulating her subjects and adding elements of abstraction through representational imagery. Through these surreal abstractions, she transmits themes of psychological and emotional human experiences through a fantastical lens, creating a blurred line between reality and fiction. Similar to the line that is often drawn between groups of the minority and the majority. As a woman of color herself, these themes are her firsthand accounts and experiences that can be shared with others who find they don’t quite fit in as well as expose the majority to a new experience. Keliiliki has also created several commissions including a bookmark—illustrated based on the themes of a book— which received recognition by the author. Each of her pieces is a fusion of color, texture, and form, capturing the essence of her creative vision.

Modeling and makeup artistry allow Raylene Keliiliki to merge her love for visual aesthetics with the dynamic world of fashion. Graduating from the Barbizon Modeling School, She has been able to express different facets of her personality and artistic style within modeling, and now, SFX and Makeup Design. Keliiliki has found that makeup serves as a transformative tool, enhancing and redefining hers and others looks to complement various creative themes.