Shelly Tiemeyer

Artist Statement

I grew up watching Bob Ross paint his fluffy clouds and insist there were no mistakes when it came to painting. I was mesmerized. He insisted that everyone could be a painter, even me. It was many years later, when my son started first grade, that I started to paint. It was a place of experimenting -- and discovering what might happen next. A place where surprises might surface, on the canvas, and inside of me.

I like to paint silhouettes of colorful women, the divine feminine. Women who are lost and who are found. Women who are hidden and who are seen. Women who don’t belong and belong more than ever. They can not be defined. They can not be diminished. They are no one. They are everyone. Their very existence is an act of resistance of all systems that seek to define them. They represent an emergence, and at the same time erasure of self. They are women who are willing to surrender to themselves in order to be who they are.

I hope my art invites you to see something of me, and in doing so seeing something of you.