About the Artist
Amy Alt-Keller
I’m an Atlanta-based visual artist working mostly in watercolor and acrylics. Intuitive and spirit-inspired, my work evokes emotions and taps into a deep inner stillness.
I have always loved art and wanted to spend time creating it. It’s an amazing escape from and antidote to reality. I found my calling with watercolors and then acrylics. I am constantly drawn to trying to capture the essence of a subject and bring it to life with color and expressive movement. I find myself living in the world of abstract expressionism more and more. I definitely use a brush when I'm painting with watercolors, but I often paint acrylics with my hands - throwing, dripping and drizzling the paint. I thin paints, thicken paints, pour them, blow them around and use the force of gravity. It’s like a dance and no two dances are ever the same as no two subjects are the same.
The only thing I know is that I paint because I need to.
— Frida Kahlo
In the flow of creativity
Art transcends logic. It has the power to unlock all of us equally. I go into my own world when I paint. It’s meditative for me and I get lost in a world of color.
I’m always drawn to my studio when I’m feeling something deeply and need to work it out. I follow whatever the inspiration is with the goal of expressing the feeling and the moment that’s flying through my head.
I follow that road, working through the emotions and connections I’m feeling with an intuitive sense of which colors should go where and which way the paint should move.
Often, when I’m in the depth of the process, I step back from the canvas and that’s the first time I see what I’ve painted.
Breaking Through. Acrylic on canvas.
Seeing clearly
One of my favorite examples of my process is around an acrylic titled Morning Glory. It was a day when I was struggling with a lot going on in my life, as most of us do.
I wasn’t really planning on painting a “real” painting. I just knew I needed to paint. I wasn’t paying attention to the structure or layout of the painting. I was drawn to specific colors and specific ways that I wanted to move the paint with my brush. I literally moved color around on the canvas not thinking about the end product at all.
When I stepped away it was a floral painting that I didn’t even know I was creating. All I knew is that I had to use certain colors, and I had to move my brush in certain ways. I was lost in the process, and the end product was irrelevant for me.
Yet, there it was. A beautiful field of flowers that had somehow emerged while I painted and processed what I was going through. As I stared at it, I also realized that I had somehow processed out everything that I had been struggling with.
It was like the rainbow at the end of a storm, and I could see so much more clearly after having painted it. The other beautiful thing is that the painting didn’t hold the feelings I was processing, it just held the rainbow at the end. Since then, several people have seen this painting and been drawn to it. I’ve had several offers to purchase it, but my husband won’t let me sell it. I don’t know what about the painting moves people, but I wonder if they feel the same peace and clarity I felt when I finished painting it.
Morning Glory. Acrylic on canvas.
Sensing the stillness at the center
Artwork for me is a pause and a stillness. It’s an escape and a luxury, and so very necessary. It’s allowing myself to be centered and in the moment with the beauty of something and lost in its world. We need to create these moments of pause for ourselves.
Easter Lillies. Watercolor on paper.
Creating moments of pause
I feel at times like I’m not painting alone. It’s as if there’s an energy guiding me, showing me where to go with a painting. I think that explains why people are so viscerally drawn to my work. They can sense the emotion of each piece and the stillness at the center of it.
Processing emotions through art
Painting reminds me of who I am and who I want to be, I turn to painting for all kinds of reasons, and especially when I need to process my emotions - good, bad, happy and sad.
What comes out on the canvas or paper is sometimes a surprise to me. When I’m painting, I’m drawn instinctively to certain colors, and I’m drawn to moving the paint in certain ways to emphasize details.
I like to capture the essence of the things around me. I have no interest in realism. That is what the beauty of photography is for. I want to capture the emotion in a subject and portray it with drips and strokes of color.
Resting. Pastel on paper.
My healing work
I’m also an empath, medium, spiritual guide, medical intuitive, energy worker, healer, and IFS-informed life coach. Learn more about my work at AmyAltKellner.com.
Spring Sunshine. Watercolor Collage on Paper.
Where I am now
Originally from Cleveland, Ohio, I spent many years in San Francisco before settling in Atlanta with my husband, son, and a pack of cute, mischievous dogs that love to try and walk on my paintings.
My approach to abstract expressionism as an intuitive, visual artist