We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Kaysha Siemens. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Kaysha below.

Kaysha, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

It is hard to say what my most meaningful project has been. Meaning and impact are often unexpected, in surprising and wonderful ways.

A few years ago, I had a mentor who planted the seed of a huge new direction in my work. Before working with her, I had painted a couple tiny studies of cloudscapes in a paint medium I specialize in, egg tempera (truly tiny, just a few inches in scale). During the mentorship, she suggested I pursue these studies as a series. This was a little unexpected, as the mentorship was under the umbrella of a portraiture organization, but I happily pursued what honestly felt like an indulgence, alongside other program projects.

Months later, I decided to mount and frame a few of these studies, and the very day I picked them up from my framer, I also wandered into an excellent local gallery while I was in town. The gallery couldn’t have felt farther from what I was working on at the time: large scale contemporary work was a far cry from my background in fantasy and fondness for small scale. But there was another artist’s work hanging I fell in love with, huge semi-abstract rainy skies. When a gallery staffer greeted me, I complimented the gallery’s curation, and pulled my little bundle of studies out to show why these huge skyscapes so resonated with me — joking that I could get away with it because my studies were so tiny, they wouldn’t want them even if I WAS soliciting. And truly I wasn’t! But it turned out that staffer was the gallerist (please imagine my chagrin), who was already a fan of egg tempera, and loved my tiny studies, and asked me to keep him in mind if I ever went large-scale with them.

If you know anything about gallerists, you know how rare that is. I took that conversation to heart, and gave it a try (turns out I love working big if it’s skies, one was more shocked than me), and am delighted to say that a couple years later I am now on that gallery’s roster. I wouldn’t have pursued that little series of skies if it hadn’t been for that mentor, and wouldn’t be painting large-scale if not for the unexpected connection with that gallerist.

I still think of myself as primarily a figurative and narrative painter, but this newer side of my art is exciting and challenging, and I can’t wait to see where this unexpected additional direction continues to take me.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I’m Kaysha — I’m a painter based just outside Asheville, North Carolina. I’m a big huge nerd, and I love literature, folklore, and fantasy. I lean into that love in my work, and I’m probably best known for my Greek Mythology paintings. I specialize in oil painting and egg tempera painting, an ancient paint medium made by hand with egg yolk and artists’ pigments. My work tends to be quiet and earnest, and I definitely wear my heart on my sleeve. I’m lucky to have an audience that loves the same things I do, and to be able to do what I love for a living. Most of my work is independent and self-directed, but I am always open to the right project with the right client.

I have been a finalist in well-known competitions such as the Beautiful Bizarre Art Prize, the Almenara Art Prize, and the ARC Salon. I’m represented by Haen Gallery in Asheville, NC, and I make appearances at various shows over the course of the year where collectors and fans can meet me and see my work in person. One particularly incredible event is IX in Reading, PA in October, which I can’t recommend highly enough if you love imaginative realism.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

Connection. When I pare everything else away — flexible hours, being my own boss, all the definite perks of creative entrepreneurship — what remains is connection. All those things are HUGE, but the thing that come away from events energized by is the moments I connected with a collector, potential new client, or just a new or old friend, when my work resonated and someone “got” it. I’m an introvert and easily exhausted, but these meaningful personal resonances and connections, whether in person or across the internet, are ultimately what keep me going and make the struggles of the artist’s life worth it.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

I’ll start by saying I don’t have what anyone would call a huge following (a little over 10k on Instagram at the time of this interview), but since my answer ties into my thoughts about connection, here goes: I think the most important part of audience-building is authenticity. I have never been able to maintain a consistent posting schedule, I have no idea what time or time of day is “best,” I never have any idea what the current social media strategy is, and I have never tried to actively “grow” my audience in a commercially-minded way. I have never been able to treat my own social media presence as a brand. Instead, I’ve just been myself: inconsistent, earnest, and genuine. My audience grows slowly, but it dwindles even more slowly: I often forget to post for months at a time, but when I come back, the people who care are still there, and I firmly believe this is because I have let them see the real me.

Contact Info:

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