About
Phoenix is a multidisciplinary emerging artist based in Pittsburgh. She graduated in May 2025 with a Bachelor of Arts in Studio Art and Psychology from Hope College. Her work has been exhibited in several galleries and showcases across the United States, and she is a recipient of the prestigious Jon F. Kay Award for Excellence in the Arts.
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Phoenix is passionate about the intersection of art and mental health, and she is working to complete her Masters of Arts in Art Therapy at Seton Hill University. Through her work, she explores creative expression as a tool for healing and connection. She also shares her artistic process and insights with an engaged community on various social media platforms.
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When she’s not in the studio, Phoenix enjoys spending time with family, playing games with friends, and doting on her two cats.
Artist Statement
Influenced by my background in psychology, I see art as a transformative tool for emotional exploration. This perspective drives my focus on the dualities of human relationships—being both beneficial and harmful—which I explore through a combination of sculpture, photography, and painting. My process often begins with sculpture, using materials such as resin, foam, clay, and joint compound to create dimensional, abstract forms. I then translate these forms through photography, capturing shifts in perspective and lighting before fully realizing them in oil paintings, where composition, color, and texture deepen their emotional resonance.
My work builds on the philosophy of artists like Rothko and Kandinsky, who saw color as more than visual—a language that evokes emotion and meaning. Kandinsky believed that color resonates like music, each hue carrying a psychological and spiritual weight: yellow as energetic, blue as reflective, red as powerful. He viewed painting as an emotional language, capable of shaping the viewer’s experience beyond words. Similarly, I use color intentionally to heighten emotional intensity, emphasizing complex relationship dynamics such as warmth versus tension or tenderness versus volatility. When paired with art therapy frameworks—particularly projective and phenomenological approaches—color and form operate as emotional carriers, inviting viewers to bring their own internal experiences into the work. Meaning is not imposed by the image alone, but co-created through a viewer’s unique perception, personal history, and affective response. Through slow looking and personal interpretation, the forms and colors function as a visual container, allowing complex emotional and relational material to surface in a way that allows for exploration without overwhelm.
In this way, abstraction becomes a reflective mirror rather than a directive image—encouraging viewers to discover what resonates for them personally, and to consider how their interpretations reveal patterns of connection, tension, vulnerability, and self-understanding.