About

Shayla’s work focuses human relationships with the natural world: how we perceive nature and how nature influences us. Working with nature as a subject is a personal interest to her as she grew up surrounded by nature which led to her pursuing degrees in both science, majoring in animal biology, and visual arts. Highlighting nature as the subject draws on her background in science as well as her own relationship with nature, how she perceives it, and how she can express that relationship through various art forms. Through the use of experimentation with different mediums and styles, allowing her intuition to guide her along with embracing the accidental marks by trusting the process of the medium that she is working. 

The relationship between nature and art is explored through the use of different art mediums and styles. Her work examines relationships in nature and between mediums using printmaking, drawing and painting. She is interested in how different mediums influence how the subject is perceived, which can be seen as she explores the same subject in different mediums and how the subject can become a part of the process in creating each work. Working in etching produces images where the subject, plants and flowers gathered from nature, are a key part in the physical process by using the impression of the subject to create an image as well as in silk screen where the plant is used directly in the creative process creating an image that resembles a photogram. Working in acrylic painting using an abstract approach to the subject draws attention to how information about nature is perceived. She creates abstract paintings by using fake plants and flowers as replacements for brushes, while textures and images are used to create captivating backgrounds as the base of realistic portraits of nature.