Artist Bio

Aryl R. Hatt-Todd is an American artist, illustrator and writer, currently living in Boulder, Colorado.  She is best known for her illustrations of nature spirits, nonsense drawings, and beings in prayer.  Her first love is photography, but is developing a teachable series called the Yoga of Creativity (TM). Created to find flow where there are blockages of the mind, and teaching the interconnectivity of everything to corporations, to give a more grounded side of creativity that is not AI driven.  Born in the upper peninsula of Michigan to creative young scientific parents, they gave her scissors, paper and pen at a far too young age.  At 10 years old her father gave her a dark room to play in, and what started with an obsession of Ansel Adams, drifted into the love of the poetic humor of Jerry Uelsmann.  At 18 she was a Rotary Exchange student to Sweden, where she learned the language and became inspired by the give and take of space, both in the galleries of Stockholm, and the simple spaces of Swedish design.  This mixed with the intoxicating magic of Scandinavian whimsy, gave her the permission she needed in her heart to just draw. 

She attended the Art Academy of Cincinnati on and off for a decade, studying sculpture because drawing was already part of the curriculum.  Her career path in the arts starts at the Contemporary Arts Center, the Cincinnati Art Museum, Happen Inc., Everybody’s News and transitions into scientific work in R&D for Sun Chemical, a global pigment and ink manufacturing company, and a Lab Administrator at the Artemis Testing Lab, verifying antiquities.  

Aryl was able to support her small family of two, by mixing the arts and science.  She learned how to edit film, working for Industrial Video during the analog to digital shift at the turn of the century.  Her art blends simple lines with her love of the wind, birds, people, humor, political humor and the interconnectivity of everything.  Art became her therapy to deal with life over the decades and her Yoga of Creativity classes aim to unstick the stuck psyche and help others live what she calls, A Full-Fill-Led Life.  She is currently publishing her first book of nonsense and is excited to keep submitting screenplays to the Sundance Film Festival.  

Artist Statement

My drawings explore different worlds of nonsense, with themes of praying, the wind, and creatures that make me giggle.  If in life there is a space between our ultimate reality, and what we are being fed from others, I explore the parts that are in between.  This creates the space for weird creatures, peaceful beings, and absolute joy in creating.  I primarily work in black ink and watercolor on 140lb paper, varying in size from 11” x 15” to 24” x 36”.   

While I have a background in sculpture, working with cheaper materials allows for daily drawing contemplation.  My work aims to inspire the curious child in all of us, blending fantasy with our natural environments.  My process begins with calming myself, and feeling my way around a space, or feeling my way through my subconscious.  Humor plays a large character in most cultures on Earth, and I aim to bring out the small moments that make the viewer think, look again, or simply enjoy a good look.  This is the way.  My drawings fill the blanks and create my full-fill-led-life.