Alaina Joelle

I am a still-life oil painter who creates work to evoke comfort and serenity through inspiration from the I Spy book series and my own personal lifestyle. I carefully construct each composition from artifacts I collect and possess, choosing them for their sentimental value and their connection to my own experiences. As for my style, I root my practice in realism, yet I deliberately incorporate a semi-stylized approach that reveals my hand in the work, balancing precision with individuality.

My connection to I Spy books began in childhood, when I simply enjoyed them as entertainment. But as I grew older and  transitioned into an artist, I revisited them and recognized their images as complex still-life scenes. This realization challenged me to translate their playful complexity into oil paintings, using my own objects to echo their sense of wonder and theme-based narratives. Taking it a step further, I look to find inspirations in my daily life to create my own page of the book  Each painting carries a theme that reflects both a personal memory and a dialogue with an imaginative visual language. By combining traditional oil painting techniques with these playful scenes, I can explore the intersection of old and new.