Kayla Morrow | Art & Design | Southern Arkansas University

Studio Art

Artist Biography: Kayla Morrow is a studio artist born and raised in the Texarkana, Texas/Arkansas area. At a very young age, Kayla found enjoyment in drawing subjects she loves such as animals, food, and people. Public school art teachers inspired her to express creativity through drawing, painting, and other studio mediums.

Kayla quickly began producing paintings detailing the human form of loved ones in a realistic manner. She gathers inspiration from personal experiences with other people and mirrors what she considers is “raw beauty.” Using traditional painting techniques, Kayla captures this raw beauty by not only including details of what forms an individual’s facial structure, but also what traits reflect off of their personality. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she has been motivated to incorporate elements in her work that are centered around hobbies that have kept her occupied. These hobbies include hiking and caring for plants so mother nature is starting to make a presence in her art. Currently, Kayla’s work focuses on human reflection and relationships between humans and the natural world. Surrealist artists such as Dorothea Tanning and Marco Grassi inspire her to include more abstract elements in her realist work. Kayla hopes that with the incorporation of these elements, her work won’t just look like a photograph, but as a physical piece of her imagination.

Kayla has exhibited work in the Texarkana Regional Arts and Humanities Council Exhibition, Four State Fair and Rodeo Art Show, Camelback Gallery Faces Exhibition, and the Magnolia Arts Student Show. To help pay for college, she has received art scholarships provided by the Windgate Foundation and The Four State Regional Art Club. Currently, Kayla is doing an internship with Arkansas High School, where she is helping prepare and plan for the annual Arkansas High Art Show and learning skills for her future career. Once Kayla graduates with her Bachelor of Fine Arts at Southern Arkansas University, she plans to receive her teaching license so she can encourage students to express themselves through art.

Artist Statement: Art has been a big part of my life ever since I was a little girl. I have gathered inspiration from many different art movements such as the Cubist and Surrealist movements. In my work, I have always paid close attention to color and fine detail. Recurring themes in my work include the human form and the relationship between humans and the world around them. My favorite medium is oil paint but I also find enjoyment in other mediums like watercolor, ceramics, drawing, and photography.

When painting portraits in the past, I have always tried to see how far I could push my ability to paint realistically. That was until I decided to do the series, Different Sides. With this series, I take characteristics from the surrealist movement and combine them with realism. In each painting, I break down details to form shapes containing the colors that apply to the detail. To include the concept of four-dimension that is seen in cubist art, I include three portraits within one piece. The portraits have exaggerated expressions to help give a sense of time.

Sometimes we are put in psychological situations that force us to make a poor decision to maintain our safety or desired lifestyle. In my second painting series, I demonstrate the relationship between good people and the act of making bad decisions. In each painting, I create a narrative by depicting an individual reflecting upon themselves making a poor decision while focusing on psychological theories that explain why good individuals make these decisions. Within each piece, there are details in the setting that support the psychological theory being depicted. Mirrors incorporated in each piece assistant the idea of self regret and are used as windows to look into the past.

With my Personal Plants series, I want to represent the symbolism behind common houseplants and my relationship with each plant. I paint self-portraits with my reactions to plants that have different themes such as peace, love, persistence, and suffocation. These themes reflect what each plant symbolizes. With the exaggerated expressions of the portraits, I can signify how I feel about the plants. To help viewers without knowledge of houseplants understand the meaning of each plant, I incorporate symbolistic animals that correlate with the symbolism behind each plant. Within these paintings, I use various watercolor techniques to incorporate the relaxation I want to achieve while creating this series. By building up the paint with thin layers, I mimic human skin and plant tissue. While creating this body of work, I wish for my viewers to relate to the expressions I associate with each houseplant.