Artist Meredith Raiford Akins Looks to Nature for Inspiration

Text by Bethany Adams

“I’ve always had a love of beauty,” says artist Meredith Raiford Akins, who has long celebrated the everyday allure of nature in her painted works—but who didn’t always feel the way she does about it now. “I actually developed pretty severe allergies,” she says of her teen years, which left her with an aversion to going outside. “I forgot how much I loved it.”

After receiving her bachelor of fine arts at the University of Georgia, she finally found an effective treatment that had her venturing outdoors again—and the effect on her work was lasting. “I was rediscovering my love of the outdoors,” she says. “And that helped me to fall more deeply in love with being outside and being in nature.”

Following a year painting murals with international ministries everywhere from Mozambique to Peru, she returned home and eventually diversified into gallery work. Almost a decade after graduation, she is multiple series into her career as a gallery artist, and nearly every painting reflects her rediscovered passion for the natural word.

“At my heart, and thereby the heart of my work, I’m a romantic who loves balance and color and the simultaneous vitality and fragility found in nature,” she says. While earlier works inspired by Victorian floral language and murals uncovered at Pompeii  celebrated the history of botanical art, Meredith has recently shifted her focus to something more personal.

“I’ve been just enjoying the nature around me now,” she says. She’s translated that appreciation into a number of series, including Backyard Birds and her Linen series—a collection of works that shows off not only her passion for mastering color but also a more recent interest in textural exploration. Contrasting thickly layered paint with thin color washes that allow the linen canvas to show through, the paintings offer a unique in-person experience.

Following a recent creative retreat in Tuscany, Meredith has deepened her love of innovative uses of color, in particular the use of natural pigments. “I’m probably going to be shifting into working with natural pigments moving forward and creating my own paints,” she says—and whether that’s with watercolor, gouache, or acrylics, she’s excited about the prospect of pairing them with her upcoming ideas.

In the near future, Meredith hopes to dive into wallpaper design, as well as another avian-inspired series she calls Love Birds—one more way to showcase the beauty found in the everyday. “Art can be beautiful for beauty’s sake; I’ve had so many rich conversations with customers about the flowers their grandmother grew in their backyard or the birds that greet them at the window each morning,” Meredith says. “The sweetness that comes from the simple pleasures of daily life is worth celebrating and elevating.”

For more information, visit meredithraifordart.com.