Kayla Moffatt is an intuitive, abstract painter from Ocala, Florida. She has worked in marketing and creative fields for over 10 years. Finding a love of painting during college, she began to develop her techniques and skills. For most of her life, painting remained a private creative outlet. In 2019, she decided to start sharing her work through social media. Her posting would lead to selling her first painting. Throughout the next two years she would go on to find and develop her unique style while taking local commissions. By 2021, she was accepting commissions from collectors across the state of Florida and being selected for local gallery shows, such as The Best of the Best 2021 at The Brick Gallery. Today she is currently working on her first solo exhibition and will be showing at the upcoming 2022 Student and Emerging Artist Exhibition by the City of Ocala. She will also be the featured cover artist for Ormond Magazine’s July/August 2022 issue.

Painting for me is like breathing, I have to do it. Taking everything I’m feeling or thinking, whether good or bad, and putting that on the canvas, is how I start every painting. It could be a story, a memory, or a feeling, and then I start covering it up with different colors. I love mixing colors and tones to create unexpected color palettes. I derive most of the inspiration for my color palettes from the natural landscapes and vibrant cities of my home state of Florida. Using a wide variety of tools, some more traditional like brushes to the more unconventional like sticks or homemade mark-making tools, I build up texture and interest with every layer. Layer by layer, building up the painting until what was originally written on the canvas has been completely transformed into a beautiful, colorful piece. The best feeling is when I see that my painting not only brightens up a space, but also the faces of every single person who views it. I see people walk by the painting, it catches their eyes, and they have to stop and look at it. Then they come back to it over and over because they’re always finding and feeling something new with every look. That’s why I paint, to make people feel a little brighter and bring a little more joy into the world.