The Women Who Refuse to Be Silenced

Interview with Amber DeSilva

1. Please tell us something about your background and your art journey so far.

I was taught to see the world through the eyes of my artistic mother and poetic father. Growing up in the ’60s and ’70s in the Napa Valley, I was surrounded by artists, writers, and philosophers. Watercolor was a favorite medium of mine in high school, then I turned to acting and, many years later, returned to visual art during COVID quarantine. 

I deliberately avoided art school or too many YouTube videos so that I could find my own voice.  I was teaching myself, making my art my own first until I was ready for a teacher. I tried collage, acrylic, inks, drawing, mixed media, and eventually oils. After the passing of my mother in 2021, painting became a daily practice: I feel strongly that my mother guides me in my work. Art has become a great anchor and a means for processing and expression.

2. Describe what a normal day looks like as an artist.

I don't really have a schedule. I like slow mornings and usually start working anywhere between 10am and 2pm, but I hardly ever paint late because then I take on the energies and stresses of the day, and they affect my painting. I like to start after being asleep, dreaming, and having my tea without too much outside input. I’ll usually paint an average of 2-3 hours but can do as many as 6. Then I do stuff around the house or errands and watch a good movie and go to bed by 10pm because my cats have me on a strict schedule.

3. Can you tell us more about the theme in your art and your inspiration?

My paintings are inspired by dreams, life, music, stories, and current events in which women and women's issues are a central focus. Reflecting upon our history as well as our experiences today, my work considers how we got where we are now and how we can act against a tide that threatens to divide us, hold us back, and silence us.

When I witnessed my government intensifying its attacks on women’s autonomy and agency, the visual ideas that had been simmering within me for years came to the fore. At the same time, a cancer diagnosis put me face-to-face with my mortality, challenging me to meet my changing body with compassion. My art is a product of this collision of the political and the personal.

Lilian

I create psychologically layered and sometimes surreal portraits and figurative scenes that examine the complexities of the human experience and that hold space for both vulnerability and strength. Rooted in personal memory, archetypes, and the cultural narratives that both distort and reveal our identities, my work draws particularly from the tropes imposed on women: witch, saint, or hysteric. 

I reinterpret traditional portraiture, but I don’t chase realism or perfection. The women I feature have all manner of different truths to tell: Some are family and friends, while others are drawn from history; some are famous for rejecting the oppressive norms of their time, while others are anonymous women photographed in institutions where they were restrained and silenced. Their lives all differ, but they are bound by a common courage: the audacity to be fully themselves in a world that demands compliance. I believe it is essential to acknowledge our inner rebels—to give ourselves and our daughters permission to explore our strengths, to feel what we feel and not be ashamed—to embrace a raw desire to be heard, to not hold back, and, at times, to scream out loud. For generations, women have been squeezed, shrunk, and manipulated to appeal to the male gaze. How about we just be? 

Grandmother's Marigolds

My paintings use symbols to express visually what my words cannot: birds can represent the imperative to sing one’s own song or the courage to struggle against powerful headwinds; a woman juggling knives can exemplify the pressing, often risky, need for women to multitask; vintage newspapers or sheet music collaged onto a work's background can give its subject the sense of being out of time or place. 

4. Is the artist life lonely? Please share your thoughts and experiences.

I'm an introvert, so it was a relief to return to art. But you can choose how isolated you are; there are art communities to be found.

Shelter

5. Tell us about your best experience in the art world so far. 

I entered one of my pieces, Free Fall, into the 2023 DeYoung Open, the triennial exhibition that celebrates the voices and visions of Bay Area artists, and it was accepted! This was an opportunity to publicly show my work for the first time, and it led to many other opportunities.

Website: https://amberdesilvaart.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amberdesilvaart/