Amy Lay

Amy Lay is a contemporary wildlife artist living on the ranch her family homesteaded in the turn of the century in the mountains of Northeastern Oregon. Primarily self-taught, but grateful for her Bachelor of Fine Art from Eastern Oregon University, Lay’s career has evolved from childhood dream to strong reality. Vibrancy, a sense of looseness and a comfortable nontraditional style are all ways in which Lay’s work have been described.

Residing in and drawing inspiration from mountain hideaways in Wyoming and the Wallowa Mountains of Northeastern Oregon, Amy Lay fosters an intimate love and fascination for the animals, wildlife and ecology surrounding her. “My animals don’t look perfect,” reflects Lay. “Instead of trying to find a photograph, I draw and paint from my imagination, and that gives me freedom, which gives the piece freedom. The movement is everything for me.”

She renders her creations primarily with oil pigment and the organic and confident presence of graphite and charcoal. Starting with illustration, Lay draws animals from her memory, emphasizing the movement of each creature. Trained in watercolor painting, Lay applies these techniques using oil paint and washes over the original drawing, which she allows to show. A bold use of color, powerful, yet simple design and an ephemeral quality in her use of medium influenced by years of painting strictly in watercolor has given Amy’s work a highly recognizable and unique signature quality. A unique distinction in the genre as well, is her limited use of reference, relying on memory and creative gesture in her subjects gives her animals a very distinct non-photographic brand. Her work dances across the often-thick line between realism and abstraction, traditional and contemporary and because of this, appeals to a very broad clientele and appeals to both the established “old guard” of wildlife art, and the growing contemporary genre.

Amy Lay was featured in a PBS episode on the Oregon Art Beat in 2022, and she has been invited to the juried Coors Western Art Exhibit and Sale in 2023 and 2024. Lay’s work can now be found in homes and private collections across the United States.

ARTIST STATEMENT

“I think people have a natural attraction to wild things. It’s what humans have always been painting and drawing, is animals, since cave paintings. I decided I was going to be an artist, my mom says, since I was five. I think isolation can be a wonderful thing for creativity, and growing up out here I didn’t have a lot of other little girlfriends, and instead I found joy and companionship with animals.”

Source: Season 23, Episode 6 Oregon Art Beat on Amy Lay by PBS. https://www.pbs.org/video/amy-lay-efulyb/