By Efrat Koppel | Madison Locally Sourced

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Ariana Vaeth, a contemporary painter in Milwaukee, reflects on Terry McDaniel Shovlin, the woman who introduced her to oil paints at 15 and who’s been teaching for over 50 years now. “She’s definitely an icon to me,” Ariana says. “She instilled a passion for the romance of painting.” Laughing, Ariana drags out the syllables, “Big everything to Ms. Shovlin. Yeah, everything.”

Ms. Shovlin isn’t alone in Ariana’s heart. Over the two hours we spoke, she mentioned multiple teachers who shaped and empowered her. “The people I admire the most in many ways are the teachers in my life.”

Those teachers, combined with her talent and devotion, brought Ariana to where she is today. At 30 years old, she has already established herself as one of Milwaukee’s premier contemporary painters, transforming intimate domestic moments into rich canvases that honor the spaces and people she loves.

Growing up in Baltimore, she was “poured into” from a young age by her parents and her daycare provider, Jean Tillman, who gave her projects and covered the walls with her artwork. At 13, Ariana experienced her first “flow state,” spending five hours on a still life her parents later framed. Her journey would come to reveal an artist deeply committed to both technical mastery and narrative authenticity.

Mrs Kwanza’s Closet, 2023, oil pastel on gessoed paper 32×44 inches. Photograph by Rachel Lukas

Ariana went on to attend Carver Center for Arts and Technology, where she met Ms. Shovlin and completed her first oil painting. It took 12 hours, but it was revelatory. Compared to charcoal and graphite, oil’s richness captivated her. She recalls thinking, “This is it. This is the thing forever; this is the thing that I’m going to do because this color is so much more. I can hyperfixate on it.”

That hyperfixation and rigorous study brought Ariana a full scholarship to Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design (MIAD). After graduating, she received the Mary Nohl Emerging Artist Fellowship and stayed in Milwaukee. The following years brought her acclaim. She became one of the region’s most successful emerging portrait painters, earning, among other awards, the gener8tor Art accelerator program grant and a spot in the inaugural residency at the Dome House in Door County.

Ariana’s approach has evolved significantly, particularly during the pandemic. Before COVID, she utilized a highly controlled, photo-composite process. When she moved in with her mother for three months in 2020 and her mother wouldn’t be photographed, her method needed to shift. “Now my practice literally needs to change because it’s not inclusive,” she reflects.

Appetizers, 2025, oil on canvas, 24×12 inches. Photograph by Ariana Vaeth

She began working more from observation and imagination, letting paintings unfold organically. The shift set her up for an approach she’d carry for years: where privacy roots as a core principle in her work while holding a simultaneous commitment to narrative honesty, where proportion wraps around a subject’s needs, and where perspective warps with distance and memory—painting homes away from home.

From that moment, Ariana’s work broke open. Perspective stretched. Color exploded. Her mark-making grew layered and vibrant.

Perhaps no aspect of Ariana’s current work is more singular than her devotion to and masterful use of texture. One of her most recent pieces, Stuffed animals with toppings (Fruit Basket) (2025), is an ode to the technique. The painting’s centerpiece is the lush bedding draped over two slumberers. The bedding is an unexpected landscape, a celebration. “Textures are for me what helps me create the form a lot better—that specificity about that object, about that place. Textures help me figure out a world.”

Stuffed animals with toppings (Fruit Basket), 2025, oil on canvas 72×48 inches. Photograph by Ariana Vaeth

Along with texture, Ariana’s pieces in recent years glow with rich color and generous storytelling details—qualities featured in Mrs. Kwanza’s Closet (2023). “Just holding onto these little bits of clothing and of our lives being intertwined, her mom’s things, my mom’s things,” she says. “I’m very emotionally supported by my friendships, and that pours into the work.”

Every detail comes from something Ariana holds close. “It feels like a natural thing to do—I want to memorialize this part. I want to honor this part.” Ariana has spent her artist life painting loved ones, their spaces, meals, rest, and connection. For her, every painting is a proposal to the subject for future collaboration. It’s clear the people are the most cherished piece of her.

For all her sentimentality, listening to Ariana is also a feast in hearing a highly skilled technician deconstruct and rebuild the material of her work. She speaks about corrupting the surface and allowing the “moves in the painting” to be reactive to one another. When she can’t solve a given problem herself, she turns to art museums, which she visits “constantly, as much as I can,” she says. “I plan trips around going. Those adventures turn into paintings. … It’s very very necessary for me. I think it’s my biggest love of life.”

Beyond museums, Ariana orients her time in Milwaukee around being present for artists. Her community energizes and cultivates her. “I want to make better paintings all the time. There’s just a lot more learning to go.”

Juliette Balcony, 2024, oil on panel 24×18 inches. Photograph by Green Gallery

That community extends to her students as well. An instructor at MIAD, she describes teaching as hard, always humbling, and special. It inspires her, enough that she sees graduate school in her future, alongside expansion into larger dimensions. A 6- by 13-foot piece of canvas awaits in a studio at her mother’s home in North Carolina. She’ll stretch it this winter so it’ll be ready for paint come summertime. It could be the beginning of a new chapter, as Ariana talks about paintings as dimensional spaces figures inhabit, ones where her subjects need both privacy and “wiggle room.”

When asked about the future, Ariana’s answer has remained consistent over the years: she just wants to make more paintings. Between her home and those of her loved ones, canvas is where she can honor their sacredness through curation and craft. “I feel like that history lives with me. That’s how I feel about painting. It’s a stage.”

Efrat Koppel is an arts writer and lifelong arts lover and practitioner. Efrat writes about local artists, creative process, and the role of place in shaping artistic identity.