Artist Bio

Powerful, color-intense, abstract portraiture and shamanistic imagery best describe this emerging artist's work.     Though her early renderings as an artist tended toward graphic and commercial work, her current abstract paintings have became recognized as her signature style.  The images she currently works with aims to explore what burrows beneath the surface of our human experience. 
Iryiel pursued a strong foundation of figure drawing and painting at Colorado Mountain College and the University of Colorado, Boulder.  The Art Institute of Colorado formerly in Denver, enhanced her understanding of color theory and the use of line and contour in her illustrative work.   Recently, Iryiel's new illustration skills include watercolors, pen and ink and digital illustration, in an effort to bring her coming children's books to life. 
In regards to her paintings, Iryiel utilizes palette knife and paintbrush to apply and re-lift the paint on and off in multiple layers, creating the intense jagged texturing you see on canvas.  Iryiel describes this technique as a way of “reflecting the emotions, feelings and experiences we all encounter, that are  also layered and at times unpredictable in ourselves."
Through several life altering events, Iryiel sought a way to understand and find release from the experiences that greatly impacted her life.  Her artistic style shifted from duplicating the outer world to exploring the internal and spiritual dimensions a person faces after trauma, loss and illness. 
Her abstract portraiture dares to invite people to embrace less comfortable spaces and feelings, instead of fearing or rejecting them.  
In all her work, Iryiel wishes to remind the viewer that there are layers to everything, the good, the bad, light and shadow and everything in between.