Artist Biography: 

Camellia Butterfield is a Chattanooga-based abstract artist who explores the nuance of her mediums and the intuitive language of color. While her background in Interior Design from the University of Alabama gave her an early eye for how a canvas commands a room, her current work is driven by something much more personal. As a full-time mother navigating the weight of the world’s wonders and its problems, Camellia uses her studio as a place to decompress and interrogate the friction she feels between her external roles and her internal life.

Her practice has evolved into a form of emotional cartography. Instead of following a rigid plan, she relies on an internal compass and leans into the unknown to see what the paint might reveal. Much of this is influenced by the Tennessee landscape around her. The shift of seasonal light, the way shadows dance in the breeze, and the quiet textures found in moments of stillness all seep into her subconscious. These observations eventually find their way onto the canvas through a palette of earthy tones and organic movement.

Working primarily with acrylics, oil pastels, and chalk, Camellia layers her materials to mirror the weight of the human experience. Her debut collection, Threads of Solace: Layers of Grief, was a deeply personal exploration of loss and the phases of healing. She is currently developing a new body of work titled Under My Skin, which dissects the contradictory emotions that live within the body. Whether she is navigating grief or the duality of our modern climate, her paintings serve as visual pauses. They are tactile spaces that invite the viewer to slow down and rediscover a sense of stillness.