My name is Kayla Arroy. I’m 28 years old and a self-taught painter. I mostly create works focused on hardedge abstraction with an emphasis on color theory. I like using the word “play’ in regards to my work and my process. I tend to create in an intuitive and responsive way, so less restrictive, more exploratory. Anything and everything is brought to each piece - ideas, thoughts, emotions, experiences, big and small. I enjoy likening them to visual diaries of personal meditations, physical representations of the conversation that happens between myself, the canvas, color, and form. Always evolving. I find color and shape to be the easiest mode of translation for me, and so birthed the style I have now.
What is your background?
I grew up an only child for the first 8 years of my life, so art was my entertainment and my friend. I was accepted into a fine arts program from grade 3-4. It was a wonderful time that I look back fondly at. We studied all the masters, had weekly dance class, learned theatre and I remember constantly listening to Mozart as it was a given during any study time we had in class. My family eventually moved to Oklahoma and landed in Texas for the rest of middle and high school. I lost touch with my creativity at some point during this time, with random stints here and there during which I might paint or draw something just to do it. I didn’t pick it back up until after I graduated with a degree in transpersonal psychology. During my studies, I was encouraged to find an outlet and I immediately felt at home with chalk pastels at the time. I mostly created surrealist desert landscapes, highly inspired by the desert of West Texas, my home. Eventually I shifted to acrylic paint, and started playing more with geometrics, hard edges, color psychology and color theory. I’ve since started exploring the process of creating visual/tactile texture and depth as well as introducing alternative mediums such as graphite into my work.
What was the moment that you knew this was what you wanted to do?
It’s funny. I knew this was what I wanted to do since I was little. I just forgot about it for a little bit. It wasn’t until I started diving in seriously and sharing my work with the world that I remembered.
Who or what inspires you?
Am I allowed to say that everything inspires me? In all seriousness though, color combinations I might see in day to day life or photographs, architecture, nature, music, poetry, personal thoughts/hopes/ideas/experiences. Anything that inspires some sort of feeling or thought.
What is your dream project?
I honestly have so many dream projects. I would love to do more murals – the bigger the better, I would love to create a rug (or several!) of my work, I would love to create furniture (specifically chairs!) and learn to create clothing. I’d also one day love to have a show that entails a large level of installation – painting the walls and floors, building pieces to accompany canvas works, etc. I’m definitely a dreamer.
What is the best piece of advice you have been given?
The best piece of advice I’ve been given that is entirely general and not specific to art: “If you don’t know what to do, don’t do anything at all.” I think it resonates with me the most because I am a person who is often intuitively led. It makes sense to sit with whatever it is, as that openness and willingness to just be creates space for the answer to come. I find that this reflects how I create as well. Often, I’m just shifting and sitting and responding to what is happening before me.
Instagram: @kaylaarroy
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