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Amber Bushnell is a San Antonio-based visual artist working primarily in painting and photography, while continuously expanding her practice through experimentation with new materials and mixed media. Her work is bold, vibrant, and emotionally resonant, speaking to those who feel deeply, think differently, and live colorfully. Born in 1992 in Shreveport, Louisiana, and raised in the greater Houston area, Bushnell relocated to San Antonio in 2018 and earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Texas at San Antonio, with a concentration in painting and photography. Bushnell’s work explores the raw edges of the human experience, including trauma, healing, sexuality, and emotional memory. She invites her viewers into a space of honesty and reflection. Deeply personal yet widely relatable, her art connects with queer communities, outsiders, and anyone who’s ever felt like the black sheep. Her work has been exhibited widely in galleries throughout San Antonio, and her murals can be found across the city. She was selected as an official artist for San Antonio’s Cow Parade 2025, and her paintings are held in private collections in the U.S. and Australia. With each new project, Bushnell continues to push boundaries by embracing color, vulnerability, and creative freedom in her work.
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MORE ABOUT THIS ARTIST
Artist Type: Multi-Disciplinary: Multiple Art Forms; Teaching Artist/Instructor; Visual Arts: Craftsperson, Mixed Media Artist, Muralist, Painter, Photographer, Printmaker
Artist Style: Street Art: Surrealistic, Symbolic, Trompe l’oeil; Teaching Artist/Instructor: Instruction for Adults, Instruction for Children, Instruction for Seniors, Instruction for Special Needs, Private Lessons; Visual Art: Abstract, Collage, Conceptual, Contemporary, Decorative/Ornamental, Documentary, Dream Imagery/Ethereal, Environmental, Experimental, Expressionistic, Figurative, Focus on Color/Light/Movement, Formalism, Functional, Icongraphic/Iconoclastic, Illustrative, Impressionistic, Interactive, Landscape/Cityscape, Minimalism, Narrative/Historical, Nature/Wildlife, Non-Objective, Photo Realistic, Photo-Based Painting, Political, Pop, Portraiture, Realism, Representational, Sacred/Liturgical Art, Site-Specific, Social Commentary, Still Life
Artist Statement of Work
Tell us about your work (style, approach, philosophy, subject and/or theme):
My work is a visual representation of emotional memory; chaotic and messy, yet vivid, and unapologetically raw. I like to move between painting, photography, and mixed media, using each medium as a tool to explore trauma, healing, sexuality, and identity. Color is my most fluent language and I like to use it boldly and intuitively, capturing feelings such as grief, joy, discomfort, transformation. I am drawn to what is often overlooked, broken, or out of place. Found objects, unexpected textures, and layered surfaces often find their way into my work. I approach my practice as a kind of emotional archaeology, digging through lived experience, cultural expectations, and internal narratives to find what still pulses underneath. As a queer artist and someone who’s always felt like the other, I create for fellow outsiders: for the black sheep, the tender-hearted, the ones who never quite fit. My work holds space for contradiction, softness and rage, vulnerability and power, beauty and pain. It asks viewers not just to look but to feel, and to sit with what they find. Ultimately, I see art as a form of reclamation. Through every brushstroke, photo, or installation, I reclaim stories, identities, and bodies that have been silenced, flattened, or made invisible. My process is intuitive, experimental, and rooted in the belief that truth, even when uncomfortable, is worth honoring.
