Makenna Hatter-Paxton (she/her) has called Austin home since 1987. She began drawing and painting in 2017 after leaving a 12 year career in the legal field. She is particularly interested in painting the human figure, and she continually looks to artists like Lucian Freud and Edward Hopper for inspiration. Her real-life inspirations include her painting mentor, Shawn Camp, her painting professor, Tommy Fitzpatrick, and her fellow artist and friend, Alexis Hunter. In May 2021 she will graduate with her BFA, concentration in painting, from Texas State University. Apart from painting, she manages a native habitat restoration project on her ranch in South Austin, (Pretty Pool Ranchette) and she is studying to become a beekeeper. One dog and seven chickens call her "Mom."

I feel compelled to depict people in my paintings and drawings. I see it as a golden opportunity to represent human experiences and emotions that a viewer can relate to. I want viewers to paint along with me - I lay marks down, and then I do not destroy their integrity. Evidence of my hand remains in my paintings so that the viewer has a road map of what I did.My painting practice is governed heavily by questions, such as: what are the implications of using red in someone's dress? Or using blue in flesh? Or green? What am I implying by painting a furrowed brow? How can I paint a face so that their emotional state remains ambiguous? What am I implying by painting a green sky? And then there is this question, which is the one I ask myself the most: what's more important in a painting? What's depicted - or - how the paint was handled? I am starting to believe that my relationship with the paint, and the way I manipulate it, is as important, (or sometimes more important) than what I am actually depicting.