Kayla Marie Carlson (b. 1991) is a painter, writer, and designer raised in the Midwest and currently based in Portland, Oregon. Her work is concerned with the perpetual search for personal identity through storytelling, narrative, and connection with the natural world. She is particularly interested in and influenced by landscapes, dreams and fantasies, memories and nostalgia, mythology, fables, magical realism, songwriting and poetry as tools for self-discovery, and aims to express the feelings and experiences these elements evoke through her visual art. The interplay of layers, textures, color, organic shapes and mark-making yield compositions that are whimsical, poetic, tender, imaginative, playful, and expressive, blurring the boundary between reality and fiction, natural and fabricated.

Curriculum Vitae

b.1991, based in Portland, OR, USA

Education

Bachelor of Science in Interior Architecture, 2014, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Solo Exhibitions

Nostos, Happy Anyway, Portland, Oregon | December 2025 - January 2026

I Want To Remember Everything, Stumptown Coffee Roasters, Portland, Oregon | April - July 2025

Darling Citizen, Makerspace, Portland, Oregon | January - February 2025

Too Soft For All Of It, Perch, Portland, Oregon | May - July 2024

Natural Formations, Fine Art Fruit, Portland, Oregon | April + May 2024

Group Exhibitions

Silence and Slow Time, Souvenir, Portland, Oregon | May 2026

Residencies

Duplex AIR, Lisbon, Portugal | September + October 2024

Fellowships / Grants

Recipient of Artist Fellowship | I Want To Remember Everything, Stumptown Coffee Roasters, Portland, Oregon | April - July 2025