Through painting I am curious in exploring how emotions influence the way we create, and how that act of creating in turn helps us work through and process our emotions.  Looking back on my own painting journey I can identify certain shifts in my work and recall the struggles in my life that coincided with those shifts.  I have discovered that my emotions influence the way I engage with my materials, as well as influencing the point at which I feel a painting has found resolution.  Additionally, I’ve realized that finding resolution in a painting leaves me with a feeling of contentment and resolution in my personal life as well.

My process has become a form of therapy for me.  I begin painting with minimal planning and an intense drive to create.  Typically, I start with collage because it enables me to create quickly and follow an emotional train of thought, out of which the painting’s direction emerges.  From there I mix in various other media and painting elements to further develop that direction, creating layers of visual chaos followed by, or alternating with, layers reining in that chaos.  The latter stages of my painting process primarily involve extensive glazing to unify areas of the composition and to create and enhance depth, which plays a large role in calming down the chaos within the painting.

Chelsea Hyatt (b. 1988) is an abstract artist living in central Connecticut.  Hyatt studied Psychology at Clark University, in Worcester, Massachusetts.  She also studied at University of Connecticut and is currently studying painting at CT State Manchester.  Hyatt is a 2024 Miami University Yeck Purchase Award top 10 national finalist.  She was awarded the top Artistic Merit Scholarship from University of Hartford’s Hartford Art School in their 2023 Transfer Student Exhibition, and she has been awarded two MCC Foundation Purchase Awards from CT State Manchester.  Hyatt is a lifelong swimmer, both competitively (age 7 through the collegiate level), and open water, primarily in lakes in CT and NY.  Her paintings are greatly influenced by her time in the water, as well as by her challenges with trauma and mental health.  Hyatt draws on these challenges in her life and on the experiences that have helped her move forward and creates abstract paintings that process her experience of healing.