Today we’d like to introduce you to Lily Regalia.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
Since around age four, I told everyone that I was going to be a professional artist. Cut to high school, where I was taking every 2-D studio course I could, including AP Studio Art. Every so often, they would give us these career alignment tests, and the result was always visual artist in the top spot. It felt like this calling planted in me. Unlike a hobby, this felt inevitable—like if I was resisting it, I was resisting myself. Fast forward to 2023, I graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater with a BFA degree in painting. I was then left with the question: what now? I didn’t really want to go straight into a Master of Fine Arts program, so I worked a retail job while deciding what I wanted to do. I chose to travel to Italy, as it was always the one country I excitedly talked about visiting. There is also a pastel artist that resides in Naples that I’d wanted to study with. For three blissful and life-changing months, I did lots of plein air painting and ate plenty of pizza and pasta. I came back to my small hometown in Wisconsin, feeling stuck as I did before. Luckily, my trip gave me a new sense of passion and inspiration. I channeled the feeling of being in this transitional period into a new body of work which I started entering into different exhibitions. I was accepted into a show with Visionary Art Collective based out of NYC and was a finalist in AcrylicWorks 12 through Artists Network. With this newfound confidence in my work, it was a last-minute decision in December of 2025 to apply to MFA programs. A few months later, I was accepted into the program at Arizona State University where I am currently going into my second year of studies.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I believe the biggest challenge has been choosing the artist’s path against the grain of a society that values stability. In the past, I was scared into not pursuing painting. I was also a people pleaser and wanted to fit into the system, so I considered socially respected and practical career paths like the medical field. That way, I could have a steady income while painting on the side. During and after my undergraduate studies, I considered careers that felt like compromises with my creative voice, such as teaching K-12 or graphic design. I kept going halfway in without actually identifying myself as a professional painter because I knew the financial hardship and the stress that would come if I fully committed. When travelling to Italy to study painting, it was very much a “Plato’s allegory of the cave” moment. I knew what it was now to live my life fully. I realized what I would be sacrificing by prioritizing stability over passion and had a difficult time continuing to justify that cost.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am a painter whose work focuses on spaces within the home as a reflection of psychological spaces. Coming from my family’s background in construction, I have been consistently surrounded by interiors that are torn apart and rebuilt. I find this to metaphorically describe the way our emotional center is constantly destabilized and explore states of liminality visually through incomplete self-portraits and furniture. Rather than painting the home as a place of comfort, I use it to expose feelings of uncertainty, longing, and emotional tension. Chairs are commonly used in my work to ironically convey this lack of rest, while giving physical form to absence. My interior paintings are created primarily with acrylics, but people often ask me if they are pastels. I explain that I paint with unblended layers built up through dry brushing which gives the work an airy, atmospheric quality. My background in plein air painting with pastels has largely informed my studio-based painting process.
What were you like growing up?
As a child, I would describe myself as independent, curious, and questioning. The people around me saw this as being argumentative and difficult behaviorally. I couldn’t simply accept authority and needed an explanation, communication. I just wanted to make sense of why things were the way they were, why there were certain rules, etcetera. This made me quite talkative, but I am an introvert at heart. I have always found true solace in both isolation and artmaking, for connecting ideas visually is what has come naturally. I liked writing short stories, reading, and drawing, of course, for it was this sort of escapism where I could both better understand the world around me and feel better understood.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://lilyregalia.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lilyregalia_art/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lily-regalia
