Amber DeSilva creates psychologically layered portraits and figurative paintings that seek to disrupt cycles of shame and repression that result from cultural narratives designed to contain women. She is inspired by memories of being misunderstood as a child who felt emotions very deeply and the resulting patterns of shame, anger, and addiction that she experienced later in life.
Her most recent body of work, Witches, Saints, and Hysterics, was created as DeSilva underwent cancer treatment. She notes, “I was struggling to be compassionate to myself, to not see my body changing and flinch or look away. So I painted unflinching women as a way to surround myself in their strength.” To date, the series consists of seven portraits of historic and contemporary women that embody a spirit of rebellion—against the gaze, against silencing, against the social forces that seek to keep them small. Each subject is paired with an animal, a symbol of the primal force, intuition, and resilience that endure even under constraint. The series channels DeSilva’s own confrontation with vulnerability, mortality, and identity into images that are as much acts of resistance as they are works of art.
Since 2020, DeSilva’s paintings have been exhibited at the Petaluma Arts Center, Artworks Downtown, San Francisco Women Artists Gallery, and the De Young Museum.
