Hey everyone! I’m Ava Viola, an oil painter based in Atlanta, Georgia. I graduated with my BFA from Georgia Southern University in 2026, and I’m pursuing a career as a full-time, self-employed artist.

My work pulls from a little bit of everything: life, emotions, personal experiences, and learning to accept the messiness of being human and turn it into art. I love incorporating hidden symbolism throughout my paintings, creating layers of meaning that might not reveal themselves at first glance. My creative process usually begins with something from my own life, whether it’s an experience, emotion, memory, or observation, and grows into work that reflects real struggles and shared human experiences.

I didn’t begin seriously pursuing art until college. I originally started as a business major, and during that time, I was struggling with school and trying to figure out what I wanted my future to look like.

Growing up, I always struggled with math and was diagnosed with dyscalculia. But for me, it never felt like something that only affected math class. That feeling of confusion followed me into other areas of my life. I constantly felt like I was missing something everyone else seemed to understand, like everyone had been handed a set of instructions that somehow skipped me.

Creativity was the one thing that always felt natural.

I had always loved making art, but I never really considered it something I could seriously pursue until college. Once I did, something finally clicked. Art became a space where I didn’t feel behind or confused. It was something I understood instinctively. For the first time, I felt like I had found a way of thinking and communicating that actually made sense to me.

When I started thinking seriously about my future, I knew a traditional desk job wasn’t the life I wanted. The idea of spending my career disconnected from creativity felt draining before I had even begun. I realized that if I wanted a life that actually felt like mine, I had to find a way to make a creative career work.

Creating gives me the energy and sense of purpose I spent years looking for. Art gave me a language when so many other things felt impossible to translate.

And now, I’m building a life around it.