Jessica Vadala

Jessica Vadala makes abstract paintings shaped by emotion, memory, resilience, and recovery. Her work developed through self-teaching and experimentation after a period of personal upheaval, becoming a way to process experiences that were difficult to explain in words. Music is integral to both her studio routine and the emotional structure of the paintings.

Art was not presented to Vadala as a formal career path while she was growing up, but she was drawn to images from an early age. As a teenager, she kept a reproduction of Vincent van Gogh’s The Starry Night in her room and returned to its sense of movement, emotion, and visual freedom. She carried an art briefcase and drew whenever she could, interested in both making images and seeing what others had made.

Writing became especially important after a second concussion created new challenges with cognitive processing. Vadala, who has a speech impediment, found that writing offered a way to communicate thoughts and feelings that could otherwise remain difficult to express. Her college writing courses later helped her develop a clearer language for the experiences and motivations behind her artwork.

A fatal car accident on July 17, 2017 became a decisive turning point. Vadala struggled to process the event and its aftermath, and searched for a way to communicate what language alone could not contain. Buying a simple set of paints at a local store began an artistic practice that has continued ever since.

She has no formal education in visual art, developing her skills through practice, experimentation, research, and repeated trial and error. This self-directed method remains central to her approach. Curiosity leads her toward new techniques and materials, but she consistently returns to abstraction because it gives her the freedom to work directly with feeling.

Healing, survival, transformation, emotional release, and resilience are recurring concerns. Her paintings often begin with a memory, mood, or unresolved experience rather than a fixed visual plan. The finished work may hold a stage of recovery, a difficult period, or an emotion that would be hard to communicate in another form. Imperfection is important to this process. Vadala does not seek a polished image detached from its making, but a surface that can register uncertainty, pressure, and change.

Music directs the pace of the studio. Before she begins, Vadala puts on headphones and selects music that corresponds to her emotional state. The sound becomes a starting point for the work, shaping its rhythm and energy. Kurt Cobain and Chris Cornell have been particularly important influences because of the directness of their music. Zakk Wylde’s Book of Shadows inspired her painting Truth, while Pop Evil’s Versatile was an important source of motivation during a difficult period of healing.

“I cannot create without music,” Vadala says. Her workday may involve painting, testing materials, or processing experiences that will later become part of a painting. The studio is not necessarily orderly. She describes it simply as being “covered in paint,” allowing the work to unfold through physical movement and experimentation.

When creative momentum slows, Vadala does not force a solution. She steps back, listens to music, reflects, and gives herself time to return with a clearer perspective. Documenting her process has also become important, since the effects of her concussions can make it difficult to remember how a particular work developed.

Vadala measures success through connection rather than sales, awards, or exhibitions. The work has given her a means of processing trauma and a way to be emotionally present for her family. If a viewer feels understood or less isolated through an encounter with one of her paintings, she considers that a meaningful outcome.

Looking ahead, Vadala is developing her broader project, Vadala Unrefined, under the phrase “Unfiltered. Unbound. Free.” She hopes to build opportunities for collaborative creative expression focused on healing, trauma recovery, PTSD awareness, veterans, military communities, and others who have lived through difficult events. Her aim is to use music, paint, and shared making as tools for connection rather than as a substitute for anyone’s individual story.