Check out Jaycie Shields’s Artwork

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jaycie Shields.

Jaycie, we’d love to hear your story and how you got to where you are today both personally and as an artist.
I began painting about two years ago after I got my first set of oil paints for my 18th birthday. I have always enjoyed drawing, but when I started painting I quickly fell in love, and it became my biggest passion. At the beginning of my painting journey, I didn’t really know what my “style” of art was. I was focused mostly on trying to make my paintings look perfect and as realistic as possible, and I obsessed over small details and accurate proportions. Somewhere along the way, I realized that in order to feel fulfilled I needed my art to be something more. I wanted my art to make me feel something, and I wanted to be totally in love with what I was creating. This realization caused me to shift my focus and create things that I feel more attached to and that are more personal to me. This is where I am at currently with my work, and I know that I still have so much to learn about art, and about myself, and about the world around me.

We’d love to hear more about your art. What do you do? Why? And what do you hope others will take away from your work?
The subjects of my oil paintings are people and the human body. Painting loved ones, or myself, or other people that are alive at the same time as me makes me feel connected to the world. Within everybody, every curled finger and flushed cheek, there is a person who has a story, Bodies are beautiful to me because of the life that they contain.

Through time spent painting the intricate details of a person’s face or body, I have grown to admire things about the body that I may not have noticed before. Mixing paint on a palette to replicate my own skin or eye color for a self-portrait has caused me to love parts of myself as well, and also appreciate my imperfections.

I want to continue feeling deeper connections with other people through my paintings. My hope for the future as I keep making art is that people can look at it and feel some kind of emotion, or that they can just enjoy it for whatever reason is personal to them.

Have things improved for artists? What should cities do to empower artists?
I think that there are a number of ways that it is easier. There are many resources out there these days, and social media is a great tool and a good way to have a platform and an audience. These things alone don’t make it easy though. Building an audience and getting people to notice your work is difficult with the abundance of other creatives all trying to do the same thing. I think its important for artists to support each other, and I think things like Mesa’s 2nd Friday are a great way for artists to meet each other and show their work to the public as well.

Do you have any events or exhibitions coming up? Where would one go to see more of your work? How can people support you and your artwork?
The best place to keep up with my artwork is on my Instagram. All of my current work gets posted there.

Contact Info:

• Email: jaycieshields7@gmail.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jaycieshieldsart/

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