BIO
Contemporary artist Kaylie Pendleton was born in Ventura, CA (2000) and is currently based in New York City. She received her BFA from Pacific Northwest College of Art in 2022 and is an award-winning illustrator. Working with rich oil paint, she explores with purposeful blurring techniques, creating an aura or dreamlike effect that blends with reality. Through often contrasting and bold palettes, her oil paintings evoke yearning, memory, and a sense of modern-day romanticism. Having lost her right eye to cancer at the age of two, Kaylie experiences the world through color, contrast, light, and shadow, with reduced depth perception. Her vibrant palettes are often heightened and saturated reflections of her own unique perspective. She was most recently part of the Santa Paula Museum of Art’s exhibition “30 Under 30” and Dacia Gallery’s Annual Women Artists Show in New York City.
Artist statement
My figurative oil paintings investigate saturated feminine portraiture altered through blurring, stretching, and doubling of imagery to provoke the either internal or external tension of viewing yourself from a third person point of view.
This recent body of work comes from my own unique experience with dissociation. I have experienced moments in my life where my surroundings feel distant or unreal, or when my own body feels unfamiliar to me. These experiences have led me to investigate the ways women are taught to see themselves through a gaze, furthering my artistic exploration through a feminist lens. The tension between looking and being looked at connects these personal and social experiences. My paintings are autobiographical whether my likeness is present or not; I often use other female subjects to communicate feelings and experiences that extend beyond my perspective.
My figures tend to exist in ambiguous spaces with little focus given to setting. When I experience dissociation, the physical world can feel distant and out of reach, so the work focuses instead on psychological space. Through these surreal portraits, I aim to create images that oscillate between familiarity and disorientation, inviting viewers to reflect on their own memory of embodiment, perception, and the complex act of seeing oneself through the eyes of others.
Having a prosthetic eye as a result of childhood cancer has also shaped the way I perceive the world because I do not have a typical range of depth perception. I rely heavily on color, light, and contrast. The intensely saturated palettes in my paintings are heightened extensions of how I see the world, transforming visual information into emotional and psychological space. I aim to allow viewers into my universe while helping them explore their own.
Selected Exhibitions:
2026 Dacia Gallery Annual Women Artist Exhibition, New York, NY
2024 30 Under 30, Santa Paula Museum of Art, CA
2023 Illustration West 61, Society of Illustrators, Los Angeles, CA
Selected Press:
2026 Interview, “Meet Kaylie Pendleton” in Bold Journey https://boldjourney.com/meet-kaylie-pendleton/
2025 Interview, “Meet Kaylie Pendleton” in Canvas Rebel https://canvasrebel.com/meet-kaylie-pendleton/
Kaylie Pendleton 