Kelly McKernan
Kelly McKernan is a Nashville artist whose work and name became part of debates over generative AI. They earned a B.F.A. in drawing and painting at Kennesaw State University, became a full-time artist in 2012, and developed a practice in watercolor and acryla gouache. After learning that AI systems used their work and name, they filed a copyright lawsuit, joined TIME's 2023 AI list, and moderated a discussion on creativity at NeurIPS. As of October 2026, they are an independent artist and adjunct professor of art at Nossi College of Art and Design.
- Now at
- Nossi College of Art
Timeline
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2004–2012
Art school and a full-time career
They study drawing and painting at Kennesaw State University from 2004 through 2009 and earn a B.F.A. in 2009. They become a full-time artist in 2012, making watercolor and acryla gouache paintings for galleries, private commissions and their online store.
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2022
AI training and name prompts
By May 2022, over 50 of their paintings are scraped for LAION 5B, an AI training dataset. Users also enter their name as a prompt in text-to-image systems.
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2023
A lawsuit over AI training
In 2023, they file a copyright lawsuit against Stability AI, Midjourney and DeviantArt over the use of artwork to train image generators.
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2023
A TIME100 AI Shaper
TIME names them to its list of 100 people shaping the future of AI in 2023.
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December 2024
A NeurIPS creativity session
At the NeurIPS Creativity and Generative AI workshop in December 2024, they moderate a roundtable on generative AI and human creativity.
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2025
A variant cover and art book
They publish a Heavy Metal variant cover and contribute to the Aura II art book from 3D Total in 2025.
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As of October 2026
Artist and adjunct professor
They are an independent artist based in Nashville and an adjunct professor of art at Nossi College of Art and Design, a role held since July 2023.
Sources and credits
Photo: Nick Pettit, via Wikimedia Commons. License: CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: commons.wikimedia.org. Cropped to a square and resized. Ask us to remove or replace this photo.
