We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Beryl Rivkah a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Beryl, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?

In many ways, I had a very traditional creative education. Starting from age 5 at a local arts center, visual arts quickly became one of my favorite subjects to learn. I was a voracious learner when it came to painting and drawing. This love for art followed me throughout my childhood and with the accessibility of the internet, my formal art training combined with teaching myself digital art programs and techniques. I started this self-taught practice around 2009 (when I was 11) and found online communities where fantasy and comedy ran wild with colorful characters.

As I got older and became more serious about my art, doing portfolio programs and attending a high school for the arts, I felt like I had one foot in the fine art world and one in a digital world that felt at odds with my perception of a “professional fine artist”. This feeling of being between two very different art worlds led me to be confused for many years as to what skills to keep building and where to focus my attention. Over the years I would struggle with managing my time spent on oil painting and digital art, while I watched the art world come to embrace digital subcultures in gallery environments.

It was only in 2021 that the veil lifted and I felt like I could confidently merge these worlds with specific characters and topics that could function as protagonists across mediums. Looking back on my years of struggling with where I focused my artistic attention, I wish I had thrown away concepts such as ‘high brow’ versus ‘low brow’ when it came to art.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I consider myself a multimedia creative dreamer. My art practice is a petri dish of painting, digital works, jewelry, zines, plant husbandry, and more. From giant colorful spirals to wizards and witches, my work encapsulates my entire life as someone who is intrigued by ideas of play, fear, and freedom.

My artwork is for anyone who gets sucked out of life into their daydreams, for whimsical souls that feel like misfits in a confusing world, and for everyone who needs a spark of magic in their lives. I live for moments when people exclaim that my art scratches their brains in a particular way, that it reminds them of childhood, and that it transports them to a dreamy world of color and texture. I’m deeply inspired by my lucid dreams, microbiology, subversive artists like Rosaleen Norton, and spiritual creatives like Hilma af Klint.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

Seeing life through a different lens comes with the endless play that is creation. Spare ribbons from gifts, old beads from the thrift, and anxieties all become objects that hold artistic potential. This creative perspective is not something you need training for, but it is like a muscle that needs exercising. The elated feeling of making something out of what previously wasn’t art is a feeling like no other. It creates a bond with the work that makes me feel like everything I make is an extension of my own body and soul.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

Studying fine arts at the undergraduate level was always my goal as a teenager, but I love my liberal arts academics as well. My love for the two brought me to study for two degrees in college, but it became apparent during my sophomore year that my heart only belonged to one program, and with a heavy heart I decided to dive into Anthropology full-time. It was worth it to take a chance and to take some time to look at the world through the eyes of both researchers and the communities they documented. From Shamanism to bird watching, I deconstructed views I once held and found the symbols that now fuel my artistic practice

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.berylrivkah.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/berylrivkah/