Courtlyn Sholten

Could you tell us more about your journey as a self-taught artist? What first inspired you to start creating art?

I have always been a creative person but never pursued art in school but threw myself into music. After I graduated and didn’t have that creative outlet anymore, I started doing art things as a hobby. I was not a great artist and had no art skills at all, but I have always had an innate need to create something. I started doing special effects makeup and drawing as hobbies in 2019 and eventually won a scholarship for makeup school in 2020 but was unable to use it due to Covid, so I went on to the next best thing which was painting. I started by painting small things for friends as I was figuring out the medium of acrylic paint and eventually did nothing but paint in any free time I had. Being self-taught has been cool because all my techniques are primarily my own and all my art feels authentically me since my skills have come from nothing but my own practice. Since I started doing art in 2019, I have gone on to rent a studio, have a gallery space, and now travel for shows, usually in Detroit.

How has living and working in Traverse City, Michigan influenced your artistic style and career?

Traverse city is a gorgeous place, and the landscapes up here inspire me so much. I sit outside and draw trees and rivers all the time, even in winter. The bay of Lake Michigan is vast and has incredible views that fill me with so much creative energy. There are also so many artists up here. We have an art museum at the local community college and several galleries that are impossible not get some inspiration from. After moving here in 2021 I was more confident in renting a studio and putting all of my energy into art after seeing how many other artists are successful in Traverse City. Many local businesses support artists around Traverse City, which inspired me to work with other local artists and have their work in my gallery as other businesses also have some of my pieces in them as well. I know I’ll always come back to Traverse City to create no matter where my life takes me.

Your work includes very different styles — from surreal and horror-inspired pieces to colorful and playful paintings. How do you decide which direction to take with each new artwork?

Honestly, I don’t have a process when it comes to deciding what kind of piece I’m going to do or the direction it will take. A lot of the time I get commission requests which feature different things that let me expand the subjects of my pieces and inspire me to do more pieces similar to my commissioned pieces. For example, I am currently working on a commission of David Lynch in a blue lighting, and I happened to find a Tim Curry portrait as him as Pennywise from the movie “IT” in the same sort of blue lighting as my current commission and was inspired to paint that as well to practice different lighting styles. Sometimes I scroll through Pinterest and find a reference photo that just speaks to me, or I think would make a cool painting. My process is just asking myself “will this be fun to paint?” or “will this piece push your current skills?” and if either answer is yes then I put that painting idea on my list.

What role does experimentation play in your creative process?

Being self-taught, experimentation is literally all I do. Of course, I find what kind of techniques work for me and then continue to use them but every piece I do has something that I have experimented with. Whether that be a new underpainting color to build on or a new way to create some sort of texture to a piece. With my two current works, I’m experimenting with the color blue and lighting. In a piece I did of gummy peach rings I experimented with using glitter to add the texture of the citric acid that the gummies have (which worked great). One of my largest pieces is a black and white painting of astronauts that I made just to experiment with a black canvas and black and white paint. Every time I do a painting and experiment while working on a project, I feel like I learn or discover something new or find a better way to do something and can make my future projects even better.

You mentioned that you began pursuing art seriously in 2019. How has your style or vision evolved since then?

My style has progressed so much since 2019. My first drawings were just practice and they were rather awful honestly, so any art I did besides special effects makeup were just that, practice. However, by doing special effects makeup I learned a lot of skills like shading, making shadows deeper, and texture and all of those things are needed for 2D art as well. Between practicing my drawing and honing those skills I used for makeup I started to cultivate where my art is now. My art has went from simple one dimension paintings with little vision and thick layers of acrylic to what I would consider as fine art. I would consider my style / vision as still evolving everyday considering I’ve only been painting for 6 years and I’m very excited to see how my style continues to change and take shape.

What is it like running your own studio/gallery and also featuring other local artists?

This part of my art career is still developing as my gallery is newer in Traverse City. My small gallery, which is also part of my studio that I work out of everyday, is not as established as others in Traverse so currently we don’t have many viewers currently. My gallery is different from many in Traverse as mine focuses on more modern art that may not be accepted to some more traditional galleries. I currently have one other artist whose pieces are on display in my gallery besides my own, but my goal is to have many artists’ work alongside mine. This is my first gallery so there is a lot to learn with this process, but I’m very proud of how far my space has come.  Eventually I hope to have a much larger space that can cater to not only paintings but sculptures and more 3D art.

Which artists or artistic movements have inspired you the most?

Van Gogh has always inspired me with his unique brush strokes and his use of color. I always felt mentally connected to him as I tend to throw my emotions into whatever I’m painting. His art really has always spoken to me, especially his self-portraits, I love seeing him as he saw himself, I think they are super profound. Another artist who inspires me just as much is Friedensreich Hundertwasser. He was known for his love of nature and putting elements of nature into his paintings. The way he captures the raw aspects of nature in abstract ways inspires me view and paint nature with less technicality. I also go to art museums often to study many different artists and art movements. My favorite time period of art is the Renaissance and I’m venturing into oils now due to the inspiration that Renaissance paintings give me.