S. Mikaela Cohen Kaes
Digital Design
A Colorado native, Mikaela Kaes lives in Denver with her husband, family, cat, and gardens. A BFA in Digital Design candidate at CU Denver, Mikaela explores the delicate balance between concrete and abstract, discovering what imagination looks like while remaining rooted in reality. Communicating through the union of whimsy and wisdom in all of her artwork, Mikaela desires that viewers would experience the truth, beauty, and hope available in life.
As an artist, Mikaela helps brands tell their stories to grow their reach. Her work includes branding for nonprofits and artists. Collaborative and curious, Mikaela loves to team up with artists and interdisciplinary professionals, growing personally and getting to know people in the process. (People are really cool!) In addition to branding, she incorporates motion design into her practice as a versatile medium for storytelling through 2D and 3D animation.
Outside of her typical work, she uses various mediums, such as clay, wood, paint, light, watercolor pens, and glass to create installation art. Her work has been projected onto the Denver Clock Tower as well as exhibited in Aspen Grove Gallery and the CU Denver Experience Gallery. Selected by Jann Haworth, her pieces Unfurling and Dwelling Light were featured in CU Denver’s juried exhibition, Guilty 2025, at Emmanuel Gallery.
Through her thesis, Mikaela investigates how artists’ own cognitive distortions influence the messages behind the artworks they create and how those messages subsequently affect viewers in harmful ways.
