Kayla Hanson

Meet Kayla Hanson, Painter

kaylahansonpaintings.com | @kaylahansonispainting

From:
Boise, Idaho

Medium:
Oil

Inspiration and motivation to create this piece:
This is important to me because, as a woman who chose not to have children, I can relate to this piece personally.

Other interesting details about you:
I am a K-12 Art educator

images © Kayla Hanson. Reproduced by permission.

Q&A with Kayla Hanson

What inspired you to create this piece?

My inspiration will be about Motherhood and individual women's right to not choose traditional Motherhood. Choosing not to have children should not be stigmatized or questioned. Women have value without bringing life into this world.

Why is this movement important to you?

This is important to me because, as a woman who chose not to have children, I can relate to this piece personally.

What motivates you, or inspires your art?

The beauty of nature, animals, color, imagination, dreams, current and past events, human rights, and empathy. Often, allegories or things I read, such as poetry, inspire my art.

About Kayla Hanson

Kayla Hanson is a painter, born and raised in Idaho, Kayla grew up spending much time outdoors. She has been passionate about painting since she was a child and is heavily inspired by the beauty of the natural environment.  Kayla received her bachelor’s in fine art with an emphasis on painting and a minor in art history and visual cultural studies from Boise State University in 2021 and is an art educator. Kayla works with oil paint as her primary medium as she loves the action of pushing and pulling paint, and the interactions of brushwork and impasto paint. She is influenced by the interaction of light and color in the natural world, experiences, and the meaning of unraveling one’s unique interpretations of memories of “place”. Kayla has shown work in many group exhibitions as well as solo exhibitions, her work has been featured on the cover of the Boise Weekly, and as public art on a traffic box. Her work can be seen locally in the Treasure Valley.

Having a voice for people, animals, and nature, that do not have a voice, and my students inspire and motivate my artwork today and every day. I learn so much from the children I teach.

Themes in my work consist of climate change, overpopulation, consumption, mental health, personal experiences, historical, and current events. 

It is my hope that even one viewer can resonate with my work with a memory of a place or feeling.

I believe in the Pro-Voice project because it wasn’t too long ago that women had to fight for countless simple human rights, and some have been earned, yet some still very much exist, and some are very much threatened to this day to be taken away, not just from women but other marginalized communities. Art has the power to speak for the voiceless. 

I was born and raised in Idaho; it hasn’t always been easy being a woman here, or even being different in a conservative state. What keeps me here is the beauty of our natural environment and my safe space, the mountains. I am passionate about communicating this in  my work through my landscape and plein air painting. I am also motivated to show the consequence of overdevelopment and pollution to our beautiful state. 

“Art has the power to speak for the voiceless.”
— Kayla Hanson

Connect with Kayla

People can connect with me on my website or on Instagram:

Website: kaylahansonpaintings.com

Facebook: @kaylahansonart

Instagram: @kaylahansonispainting

Join the Mosaic – How to Participate

All mediums welcome. No size or theme restrictions!

We encourage works that explore:

  • Bodily autonomy

  • Feminism

  • Reproductive rights & justice

  • Motherhood

  • Gender equity

  • Abortion

  • Sexual rights & freedom

  • Reproductive health & care

Deadline for submissions is June 1, 2025.

Art drop-off locations: North Idaho, Boise, Wood River Valley, and coordinated as needed.

Mosaic Launches June 28 in Boise.

Contributing Artists

Sign up to participate!