How this Painter Grew from Margin Sketches to a Career in Art
For our Women in Arts Network website, we sat down with Milwaukee-based painter Taylor Katzman, known as Art Compulsions, to talk about portraits, bodies that speak without words, and what keeps her at the canvas.
In this conversation, Taylor shares how sketching in the margins back in 2014 grew into a studio practice driven by colour, layering, and the small cues a face can carry. She walks us through materials, fast-drying acrylic, ink, spray paint, custom stencils, text fragments, and geometric forms and how she pushes and scrapes the surface to set tension between structure and impulse. She explains the moment she knows a piece is working, when the parts click into a steady, charged balance. Taylor also talks about life at home, wife, mother, and maker and how a home studio lets her move with the ebb and flow of family and work rather than forcing rigid lines.
What we learned: Taylor’s portraits aren’t trying to tidy feelings; they let what’s unsaid stay present: grief, disconnection, longing, joy, vulnerability through posture, a tilted chin, a fleeting look. She’s clear about where she’s headed: less spectacle, more person-to-person connection, especially in a digital culture that can distort how we discuss struggle. Her closing notes for emerging artists are practical and steadying: start with what you have, accept the ugly phases, keep showing up, and choose truth over polish. If one viewer feels seen, the work has done its job.
My name is Taylor Katzman, and I create under the alias Art Compulsions. I am an acrylic painter based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with a focus on portraits and figurative work that explores the language of the body and the weight of unspoken emotion. My practice is driven by the belief that the things we cannot say out loud—grief, disconnection, longing, joy, vulnerability—are still present in the way we hold ourselves, in the tilt of a chin, or in the flicker of an expression that vanishes almost as quickly as it appears. I use bold colours and layered contrasts to amplify these subtle emotional cues, creating work that confronts and reflects the complexities of human experience. Symbolism and text often appear in my paintings, fragmented and raw, representing the way memory and emotion interrupt each other. I don’t create to deliver neat answers—I create to leave behind a lasting resonance, something that lingers with the viewer and makes them reconsider their own silences, their own contradictions.
1. How did you get started in your art career?
My journey into art wasn’t something that began with formal training or a clear plan—it started in the margins. In 2014, I found myself constantly sketching during school, filling the edges of my papers with ink drawings that became a quiet form of expression. At first, it was a personal outlet, but over time, I realised it was the one place I felt I could speak without hesitation. Eventually, I transitioned from ink to acrylic paint, and colour opened a new dimension of expression for me.
Painting gave me more than just a medium—it gave me a voice. What began as a way to cope with my inner world became a path toward connecting with others. As I shared my work, I saw that people could see their own experiences mirrored back to them in my canvases. That realisation—that my deeply personal expressions could resonate with viewers and help them too find meaningful reflections of their own inner worlds—was what transformed my practice from a private outlet into a dialogue, and ultimately into a career. Or was the turning point that solidified art as not only my passion but my career?
Don’t wait until you feel ready to begin, because readiness never comes the way you expect. Start where you are, with whatever you have, and let your work grow alongside you.
Taylor Katzman
2. When you’re creating something new, what makes you pause and say, This is working?
For me, that moment comes when the painting stops feeling like an object I’m working on and starts existing as something on its own. There’s a shift when the composition, the layers of colour, and the emotional energy all come together—and suddenly, the piece feels alive. It begins to look back at me, to carry weight that wasn’t there a moment before. Sometimes it’s in the smallest detail: a gesture in the brushwork that makes a face breathe, a tension in the colours that evokes a mood I couldn’t name but instantly recognise. I pause when the chaos finds its balance—not perfect symmetry, but the kind of balance that holds tension and harmony together in the same space. That’s when I know the work has moved past me and is ready to speak on its own.
3. How do you balance your personal life with your art career?
Balancing my art career with my personal life has never been about strict boundaries—it’s about integration. I’m a wife and a mother, and those roles shape the lens through which I see the world and create. My daughter’s energy, curiosity, and unpredictability remind me of the rawness I strive for in my work, while my husband’s craftsmanship and practical creativity inspire me to see art not just as expression, but as construction – as something with form and function. There are seasons when family takes precedence and painting has to wait, and there are seasons when the work consumes me and family life rearranges itself around it; rather than seeing that as conflict, I embrace it as a rhythm.
My art doesn’t exist outside of my life—it’s fed by it. Every joy, every struggle, every messy overlap between the personal and the creative becomes material that fuels my practice. That balance is something I’m only able to achieve because my studio is at home. It gives me the freedom to follow my own rhythm, shifting between family and art as needed, and it allows me to seize those moments of inspiration when they strike. For me, balance isn’t about separation—it’s about weaving the two together so they continuously inform and enrich each other.
4. How do you envision the future of your art and its impact on the world?
I see my art continuing to grow as both a mirror and a bridge—something that connects people in a person-to-person way. The future I imagine for my work isn’t about chasing scale or spectacle, but about deepening its ability to spark recognition in someone who looks at a painting and feels less alone. That feels especially important now, as the direction of the world moves closer to solitude and a lack of genuine, healthy validation. Much of how we cope and communicate with real human experiences now happens online, which can become a breeding ground for distortion. Most people, myself included, aren’t always comfortable putting their struggles out for the world to nitpick.
I’m a private person—I tend to keep my inner turmoil under lock and key—so even what I share online is filtered. Having this creative outlet, under my alias Art Compulsions, gives me a place to be raw in a way that everyday communication often doesn’t allow. The impact I hope my art has is rooted in that same honesty: to remind people that our lives, struggles, and joys are valid and meaningful, even when they’re messy or contradictory. My motivating purpose isn’t perfection—it’s connection. If my paintings can cut through the noise of curated online lives and offer even one person a sense of being seen in their own story, then they’ve already made their mark.
There’s a shift when the composition, the layers of color, and the emotional energy all come together—and suddenly, the piece feels alive.
Taylor Katzman
5. What mediums and techniques do you primarily work with?
I primarily work in acrylic on canvas, but my approach is far from traditional. Acrylic gives me the speed and vibrancy I need—it dries quickly, which allows me to work in layers and stay in rhythm with my impulses. I often push and pull the surface: layering thick paint, scraping it back, or building textures that leave behind traces of process. Alongside paint, I incorporate mixed media—ink, spray paint, custom-cut stencils, and handwritten text fragments. These elements bring tension and interruption to the canvas, like memories breaking through the surface or thoughts intruding on one another. I also use geometric forms and symbols to create balance against the raw emotion of my figures, adding another layer of meaning to the work. My techniques are about contrast—chaos and order, rawness and structure—all colliding in one space.
6. Do you have any parting words of wisdom for our readers or aspiring artists?
Don’t wait until you feel “ready” to begin, because readiness never comes the way you expect. Start where you are, with whatever you have, and let your work grow alongside you. Be willing to fail, to make something ugly, to sit in the frustration of a piece that doesn’t seem to work—because those are the moments that often lead to breakthroughs. Your voice as an artist isn’t something you find fully formed; it’s something you carve out through persistence and honesty. Most importantly, remember that your experiences are valid and worth expressing. You don’t need permission for your work to matter. Art doesn’t have to be perfect to have impact—it just has to be true.
Taylor Katzman’s work as Art Compulsions is centred on what we don’t always say out loud but still carry in the body and in fleeting expressions. Through layered paint, fragments of text, and symbolic forms, her portraits create space for emotions that often go unspoken.
From sketching in the margins of school papers to building a practice that connects her life at home with her studio, her journey shows how art can grow from quiet beginnings into a dialogue with others. What we take from her story is a sense of persistence, the importance of starting with what’s available, and the value of creating something that helps people see themselves in new ways.
To learn more about Taylor, visit the links below.
