Inspired by daily life, experience with a brain tumor and her desire to help others, Sierra Barnes’ paintings are layered in color and emotion. Sierra began to paint while she was sick and from there, she focused on her recovery and improving her art practice. She explains, “Everything that I experience is a way for me to grow and learn in some way.”
Her artistic style is abstract, intuitive, and figurative, just as it was in her first piece. Sierra tries not to plan her paintings but rather create through feeling, painting when she feels called or in-spired to work on a piece. With acrylic paint, watercolors, pastels and paint markers at her dis-posal, Sierra releases her emotions through many colorful mediums. She also loves to experi-ment with different substances and recently started adding crystal powders such as rose quartz, amethyst, and citrine to her paintings! Sierra also expresses herself through the art of writing.
Sierra writes poems corresponding to each of her pieces, and her original paintings come with these poems handwritten on the back. She has a blog titled "Officially Thriving" where she shares and posts about fashion, beauty, lifestyle, and wellness.
“I put my heart and soul into my art and poetry. With it, I want to help and inspire others. I be-lieve art can heal. It’s helped me through some difficult times in my life. My first painting, “Com-plicated,” is a real example of that. When I am creating, it takes me into a relaxing meditative state. From the subject to the colors and supplies that I use, I create most of my art intuitively and go with whatever I feel without planning. The main things that inspire my art are my daily life, things that I’ve experienced, and things I observe in the world. Sometimes my art inspires my poetry, and other times my poetry inspires my art. I know not everyone will understand or like my art. But I think that’s the beauty of it. Many people can look at the same piece and like or dislike it and see something completely different.