BIO

Opie Snow Lael explores seeing, connection, and our shared humanity through figurative and abstract painting. Born and raised in the mountains of southern Oregon, she grew up in a family where music, art, and making things by hand were part of everyday life. She developed an early appreciation for craftsmanship, creativity, and the ways making things can foster connection.

She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting from the University of Oregon before continuing her studies in classical drawing and painting with Semyon Bilmes. Over the past two decades, her multidisciplinary practice has included painting, installation, performance, costume design, and public art. Her work has been exhibited throughout the Pacific Northwest, California, and New York, including the collaborative exhibition BlackSnow in New York City. She is a three-time recipient of the Haines & Friends Art Fund.

Working from her studio in Ashland, Oregon, Opie creates figurative and abstract oil paintings that invite viewers to slow down, look closely, and connect more deeply with themselves and one another.

STATEMENT

My work centers on women, human connection, and the stories we carry beneath the surface. Through figurative and abstract painting, I explore what happens when we slow down long enough to truly see ourselves and one another.

I am interested in presence, memory, and the fleeting moments that shape who we become. My portrait paintings invite viewers into direct encounters through eye contact, gesture, and scale, while my abstract work explores atmosphere, time, and impermanence through layered pigment, raw surfaces, and luminous finishes.

I paint with broad, expressive marks alongside carefully observed passages, allowing the physical act of painting to remain visible. The contrast between loose gesture and focused realism mirrors the tension between what we reveal and what we carry within. Across both figurative and abstract work, I am interested in preserving the evidence of making. The marks, revisions, drips, and layered surfaces become part of the finished work, much like the visible and invisible experiences that shape who we become.

My current series, SEEN, explores the experience of seeing and being seen through large scale portraiture. Individually, each painting invites a direct encounter. Together, the portraits create an immersive environment where viewers are surrounded by a collective gaze, encouraging them to move beyond assumptions and into moments of recognition, reflection, and shared humanity. The work becomes less about the individual subjects and more about the relationship created between the paintings and the people standing among them.

Across every body of work, I return to the same questions: What happens when we truly pay attention? How do we recognize ourselves in one another? And how might art create the conditions for deeper connection?