Metamorphosing from an ER/ICU nursing career into full-time art during 2021 enabled St. Louis-based artist Elysia King to facilitate healing in a whole new way. "I believe art is transformative, and I’m passionate about collaborating with clients to tell their stories. From painting blank walls to wedding days, my work is rooted in connection and creating lasting impact," she explains.
"At first, art was a thriving side hustle to nursing, but I couldn’t imagine it becoming more than that."
After taking "an extremely calculated risk" by diving into art as a career, she's so glad she did!
Elysia says she now has opportunities to create various kinds of art all over the world as a team member of Cloud Studio Agency, including murals, live paintings and commissioned custom pieces, especially ones done at weddings.
Working in oil, acrylic and watercolor, her style highlights emotion, movement and detail. She's come a long way from her early days of pencil drawings to give as gifts to family and friends.
"While a nurse, I was drawing pets, homes, T-shirt designs, logos and unique, individual tattoos for others or fundraisers for nurses. And people enjoyed them. I kept getting asked to do more complex pieces, and I kept saying 'yes,'" recalls the self-driven artist. "Every skill I learned and practiced built upon itself until more and more requests came to create people profiles, too."
Elysia says she draws inspiration from master art classes, films, photography, books, and most from clients themselves as she discusses their specific ideas with them. "My prep process includes hearing individual stories and getting to know people. I then think about how to recreate their feelings and concepts and how to best recreate those in the mural world."