Genevieve May’s art exists in the in-between sound and silence, movement and stillness, time and memory. She is an artist who refuses containment, whose practice blends painting, fashion, calligraphy, music, and cinematography into one continuous act of storytelling. “I feel that my artistic language cannot be confined to a single medium,” she says. “Each form supports the other.”

Born in a renovated tobacco barn outside Northampton, Massachusetts, to celebrated illustrators Dennis Nolan and Lauren Mills, May grew up surrounded by easels, classical music, and a devotion to craft. “When I look back on my life, I see both my parents at their easels, five feet apart,” she recalls. “They played classical music with the occasional Jimi Hendrix and Bob Dylan for some unexpected fun.”

That rural childhood, devoid of television and filled with art classes, museum visits, and drawing sessions with her parents, shaped a sensitivity that would later bloom into her hybrid visual language – one that feels equally painterly and poetic.

From Anatomy to Aesthetics: The Discipline of Seeing

May’s early education was rigorous, bordering on renaissance in scope. By fifteen, she had studied figure drawing and sculpting at the Lyme Academy and fresco and egg tempera painting in Europe. Later, at Stanford University, she undertook a cadaver drawing course, rooted in the Renaissance tradition of studying anatomy to perfect the human form.

I attribute my understanding of the human form to this intensive. Once I grasped the techniques, I created my own methods of self-expression and storytelling.

– She reflects.

This balance between discipline and intuition defines her oeuvre. Her paintings moody, romantic, haunting – marry technical precision with emotional rawness.

Freeing the Image: The Beauty Beyond Accuracy

A turning point came when she stumbled upon a paint-smudged note at fellow artist E.C. Baugh’s studio. It read: “Nothing is more boring than accuracy.”

“I began to evaluate my own work and question my intentions behind striving to be so representational,” she says. “I spent the next year unlearning methods that inhibited my imagination.”

This revelation catalyzed a freer, more intuitive phase in her practice – where imperfection became an expressive tool. “While I value academic training,” May adds, “it should enhance, not dictate, one’s art. Creation should come from the heart.”

Her work since then has embodied a lyrical balance between order and chaos, a calligraphic realism that feels alive, as if the paint itself were breathing.

The Harmony of Time: Painting as Preservation

For May, painting is the art of stopping time. “Performance art is moving because it’s fleeting,” she muses. “But painting can stop time, preserve memory, record history.”

This fascination with temporality forms the foundation of her practice. Each painting begins as a multisensory experience – a handmade dress, a piece of music, or a written phrase. “Behind the scenes work makes the process rewarding,” she insists. “It adds authenticity to the final creation.”

She often constructs elaborate garments from unconventional materials – dresses made from the unexpected, textural, otherworldly. “People tell me I should focus on one craft,” she laughs, “but for me, it’s the combination that makes the story whole.”

Collectors are drawn to this layered process – the way her work interlaces fashion, sound, and visual imagery into one intimate mythology. “People purchase my paintings because of how they make them feel,” she says. “They always want to know the story behind it all.”

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Lions, Goats, and the Indifference of Nature

In her recent painting cycle, May turns toward mythology and nature by creating allegories that merge human emotion with animal symbolism.

“I was surprised to learn that the goat is stronger than the lion,” she writes. “While lions embody individual power, their existence is fragile. Goats, though humble, are resilient.”

I was surprised to learn that the goat is stronger than the lion, while lions embody individual power, their existence is fragile. Goats, though humble, are resilient

– She writes.

In her work, the lion becomes a metaphor for performative strength, the goat for quiet endurance. “I find comfort in relating to the goat as a woman,” she notes. “It represents an unexpected strength.”

Another recurring figure is a sculpted Mother Nature inscribed with the words “I am not sorry.” “It’s not told from a human perspective,” she explains, “but from nature’s standpoint – its quiet indifference. There is no fairness, only balance.”

This concept , that nature owes no mercy, runs through May’s art like an undercurrent. Her work becomes a meditation on the fragile coexistence of beauty and brutality, order and decay. “Storms do not choose their victims,” she writes. “Predators do not hunt with justice in mind. Yet we humans insist on fairness. Nature simply is.”

Beneath the layers of symbolism lies an emotional core – a confrontation with grief, forgiveness, and vulnerability.

A Dialogue Between Earth and Eternity

May’s latest works were inspired by her travels to a goat reserve on a regenerative farm called ‘Land stewards inc’ and to Milos, Greece – unite wildlife and antiquity.

I was moved by the ancient sculptures of Milos, they felt hauntingly alive.

– She says.

By painting her figures and animals as stone relics, she freezes them in a state between life and fossil, like a metaphor for endurance.

Genevieve May’s symbolic realism feels both ancient and modern, tactile and transcendental. In her world, goats climb marble ruins, lions fade into myth, and human confession becomes scripture.

Her art reminds us that beauty is not the opposite of truth; it is its most enduring form.