Visual Art – Chicago

I am a fairly new artist, originally from Cincinnati, now based out of Chicago. My art is mainly inspired by my synesthesia, which is a neurological condition that produces a sort of "cross wiring" of the senses, allowing me to see sounds, feel the texture of words, and smell colors. I've always loved creating, but had never really painted befotr, unless my eighth grade art class counts. I found my love for painting last year when a student in my program at Miami University painted a stunning picture of a kingfisher and put it up on the wall. After that, other people starting painting all sorts of birds for the newly created "bird wall," so I decided to try my hand at it. I spent so many days - from breakfast to bedtime - working on some of those paintings, and just fell in love with it, and now I paint most days. I've had no formal training, but found my own style and have continued to learn through a lot of trial and error (and Google). My work is a mix of some more realistic animal subjects, and synesthetic abstract pieces that express the extra qualities that I see in the world around me. With the abstract paintings, I depict my visualization of the sounds, smells, tactile sensations and emotions of very specific "feelings" - like when you're freshly showered after a really long, really good day of being on your feet, and you finally get to curl up under clean sheets. Or how it feels to sit under a porch when there's a lovely sun shower on a lazy Sunday. All of the individual elements come together to express the feeling as a whole in each one of my paintings.