About

Biography

Paula Keyth grew up in New York City. She also lived and studied art in the United Kingdom, San Francisco, Rome, and Portland, Oregon. She attended the San Francisco Art Institute and the Pacific Northwest College of Art, where she earned a B.F.A. degree. She currently works as a Peer Support Specialist and Recovery Mentor in the community of Sandy, Oregon. Drawing on her multifaceted experiences, including recovery, music, and her work as a peer, she aims to heal through the act of art-making.

Artist's Statement

My creative process involves a combination of painting, drawing, and collage. After assembling images, shapes, and textures cut from magazines, I layer painting and drawing techniques over the top to create symbolic landscapes. This physical act of collaging and painting represents a dance between memory, dreams, history, and myth. Through this process, I create a sense of different timelines, suspend the material world, and glimpse into the transient spirit realm. In these liminal spaces, you can find hybrids, giants, animal spirits, and chimeras.

I draw inspiration from fairy tales and mythology, as well as snippets I've collected over a lifetime of reading, traveling, researching, and healing. I present these stories from a female perspective, exploring my impressions and interpretations of the goddess spirit.

For me, art-making is a means of processing grief and loss, as well as discovering my own inner mythology.