Brittany is a Chicago-based mixed media artist, illustrator, and surface pattern designer whose work blends nostalgic beauty with modern femininity. Since moving to Chicago in 2012, she has built a creative practice inspired by vintage illustration, Art Nouveau and Art Deco design, everyday motherhood, female empowerment and the emotional power of slowing down. Working from her Chicago bungalow shared with her husband and daughter, Brittany creates richly layered fine art pieces using acrylic gouache, fabric, sewing, inks, and custom-designed textiles. Her illustrative work often explores themes of womanhood, memory, softness, resilience, and the importance of finding wonder within ordinary moments.
Since becoming a full-time independent artist in 2020, Brittany has become known for vibrant floral imagery, strong feminine figures, and pattern-driven compositions infused with warmth and storytelling. Deeply inspired by her daughter and the small joys they discover together like flowers blooming along Chicago sidewalks, wildlife on neighborhood walks, cherished colors and playful patterns, her recent work invites women and mothers to reconnect with whimsy, presence, and nostalgia in an increasingly fast-paced world.
Alongside her creative practice, Brittany remains passionate about advocacy, sustainability, and using art as a way to encourage connection and emotional reflection. Her artwork, stationery, fabric, wallpaper, and prints can be found online and in small shops throughout the country.
Artist Statement:
Every piece in this show carries traces of her influence. Pink appears throughout the collection as an ode to her favorite color and the unapologetic joy children often embrace before the world tells them to outgrow it. Purple, “checks”, argyle, stripes, honeycomb patterns, florals, and local wildlife weave through the work like memories from our daily routines together. The flowers featured, tulips, daisies, lilies, cosmos, coneflowers, and more, are inspired by the blooms we pass during neighborhood walks, grounding the collection deeply in the rhythms of Chicago life and seasonal motherhood. These visual elements are intentionally playful and nostalgic, reflecting the tenderness, chaos, beauty, and emotional texture of raising a daughter today.
The work itself mirrors this layered experience of motherhood through mixed media processes that combine sewing, fabric, custom-designed textiles, acrylic gouache, inks, and collage on canvas and wood panels. By stitching together materials by hand, I wanted the physical act of making to echo the labor of caregiving itself, piecing together beauty from exhaustion, creating warmth through repetition, and preserving fleeting moments before they disappear. Stop and Smell the Flowers is ultimately about noticing what matters before it slips past us. It is for the mothers longing to feel seen in both their devotion and their overwhelm, and for anyone searching for gentleness, color, nostalgia, and permission to slow down long enough to cherish the small wonders already surrounding them.
