Artist Spotlight: Tomisha Lovely-Allen
Artist Spotlight: Tomisha Lovely-Allen
Growing up, art was her passion; Tomisha loved to draw. She regularly flipped through fashion magazines and drew the people inside. While she never took any art classes in school, she managed to work art into any and every class project she could. Towards the end of high school, when it came time to decide what to do after, Tomisha discussed her options with her school counselor. She told her counselor she wanted to go to college. When asked what for, Tomisha expressed a desire to pursue art or fashion design. “You don’t want to be a starving artist,” her counselor replied. Knowing that she was good with numbers, the counselor recommended becoming an accountant. When Tomisha enrolled at NKU, she did so as an accounting major.
After graduating, Tomisha became a licensed CPA. Working for a year as a public accountant, she later transitioned into corporate accounting. Even as she started her career in accounting, got married, and started a family, Tomisha held on to her passion for art. When time allowed, usually at night after her kids went to bed, she would work on her art. Up until her this point, Tomisha had never ventured into painting. It was while she was pregnant with her first child that she bought some watercolors, acrylics, and oil paints and began to experiment. She found watercolors difficult to use for her work and acrylic dried too fast; oil paints suited her best. She even attended a six-week oil painting course through LVA. During this time, Tomisha also took on a few commissions. Once life aligned in a way that allowed her to do so, Tomisha stepped away from her accounting job. While she doesn’t regret studying accounting and enjoyed her job, she wanted to shift her focus to learning, developing, exploring, and creating art.
Much of Tomisha’s existing work are photo-realistic representational realist portraits capturing a moment of daily life, focusing on human subjects set against a blur of colors. Each piece started with a reference photo. As she worked from that photo, Tomisha played with color in these paintings, adding life and vibrance as she went. Having further progressed in her art, Tomisha now experiments with more conceptual paintings, still beginning with reference photos and human subjects as the focus. Unlike previous work, which captured moments in daily life, the recent pieces are commentary on the experience of Black Americans, protest, and what civil rights mean, juxtaposing images from the past behind images from the present. Looking to the future, Tomisha is currently working on brand new paintings to display in our Pigment Gallery at joint show next year with another Mellwood artist, Sandra Charles. To see more of Tomisha’s work or to inquire about commissions, visit her site at lovelyallenart.com. You can also find her on Facebook at @LovelyAllenArt and Instagram at @lovelyallenart.
Growing up, art was her passion; Tomisha loved to draw. She regularly flipped through fashion magazines and drew the people inside. While she never took any art classes in school, she managed to work art into any and every class project she could. Towards the end of high school, when it came time to decide what to do after, Tomisha discussed her options with her school counselor. She told her counselor she wanted to go to college. When asked what for, Tomisha expressed a desire to pursue art or fashion design. “You don’t want to be a starving artist,” her counselor replied. Knowing that she was good with numbers, the counselor recommended becoming an accountant. When Tomisha enrolled at NKU, she did so as an accounting major.
After graduating, Tomisha became a licensed CPA. Working for a year as a public accountant, she later transitioned into corporate accounting. Even as she started her career in accounting, got married, and started a family, Tomisha held on to her passion for art. When time allowed, usually at night after her kids went to bed, she would work on her art. Up until her this point, Tomisha had never ventured into painting. It was while she was pregnant with her first child that she bought some watercolors, acrylics, and oil paints and began to experiment. She found watercolors difficult to use for her work and acrylic dried too fast; oil paints suited her best. She even attended a six-week oil painting course through LVA. During this time, Tomisha also took on a few commissions. Once life aligned in a way that allowed her to do so, Tomisha stepped away from her accounting job. While she doesn’t regret studying accounting and enjoyed her job, she wanted to shift her focus to learning, developing, exploring, and creating art.
Much of Tomisha’s existing work are photo-realistic representational realist portraits capturing a moment of daily life, focusing on human subjects set against a blur of colors. Each piece started with a reference photo. As she worked from that photo, Tomisha played with color in these paintings, adding life and vibrance as she went. Having further progressed in her art, Tomisha now experiments with more conceptual paintings, still beginning with reference photos and human subjects as the focus. Unlike previous work, which captured moments in daily life, the recent pieces are commentary on the experience of Black Americans, protest, and what civil rights mean, juxtaposing images from the past behind images from the present. Looking to the future, Tomisha is currently working on brand new paintings to display in our Pigment Gallery at joint show next year with another Mellwood artist, Sandra Charles. To see more of Tomisha’s work or to inquire about commissions, visit her site at lovelyallenart.com. You can also find her on Facebook at @LovelyAllenArt and Instagram at @lovelyallenart.