Maile Lani | hello@maile-lani.com
Please click thumbnail images for larger, more detailed view.
Fairies
These paintings are part of an ongoing original series of fairies and their guardians. Each painting is 18 x 24 inches and was painted with matte acrylic and real 24k gold leaf.
Oil Paintings
Portals: Places Unseen
Works were created digitally for a 2023 solo exhibition.
Relics
An ongoing series of alien and bird-like creatures rendered in colored pencil.
Miscellaneous
An assortment of digitally rendered minimal style illustrations inspired by 20th century Japanese woodblock prints.
Process
Some process images from the creation of the painting, “Dreams Grow in the Dark”.
Final painting
16 x 20 inches
Oil on canvas, 2025
Original concept sketch
Ink on sketchbook paper, 2025
Composition thumbnail
Ink on sketchbook paper, 2025
Digital concept sketch
Procreate, 2025
CV
hello@maile-lani.com
Maile Lani is a Nashville based artist and illustrator with a love for color theory and a background in Asian art. Versatile in a variety of media, her favorite being oil and colored pencil, she blends surrealism with modernist elements to create dream-like imagery that has deep roots in the natural world. Maile’s personal body of work brings to life imagined worlds that blend myth, nature, and subtle surrealism into rich, symbolic paintings inspired by dreams and memory. Her main source of inspiration comes from her upbringing in art and antique business, where-in her family has been collecting Japanese and Chinese antiques and works of art for over 40 years. Maile's art prints and original paintings are in various private collections worldwide.
Upcoming Exhibitions
Group Exhibition: "Waking Wonder" Modern Eden Gallery, San Francisco CA, December 2025
Group Exhibition: "Year of the Horse" Modern Eden Gallery, San Francisco CA, February 2026
Solo Exhibition: "The Moon and Other Tales" Fiddlehead Gallery, Clarksville TN, Fall 2026
Past Exhibitions
Group Exhibition: "Hauntings" Strathmore, Rockville MD, 2025
Juried Exhibition: IX Arts Main Show, Reading PA, 2025
Group Exhibition: "Tarot Esoterica" Sideshow Gallery, Chicago IL, 2025
Juried Group Exhibition: "Gods and Monsters" Otherworldly Arts Collective, Minneapolis MN, 2024
Juried Group Exhibition: "DROP IN Skate Deck Art Show" Otherworldly Arts Collective, Minneapolis MN, 2024
Solo Exhibition: "Portals: Places Unseen," The Center for the Arts, Murfreesboro, TN, 2023
Group Exhibition: "Art of Resilience," Vanderbilt University Fine Arts Gallery, Nashville TN, 2023
Group Exhibition: Tomato Art Show, Nashville, TN, 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021
Juried Art Fair: Ann Arbor, Ann Arbor, MI, 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022
Juried Art Fair: Columbus Arts Festival, Columbus, OH, 2025, 2024, 2023
Juried Art Fair: St. James Court, Louisville, KY, 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022
Juried Art Fair: Atlanta Dogwood Festival, Atlanta, GA, 2024, 2022
Group Exhibition: Tennessee Craft, Hendersonville, TN, 2021
Collections
Public Collections
Vanderbilt University Medical Center Community Art Initiative, 2023
Private Collections
Works held in numerous private collections in the USA and abroad
Awards and Recognitions
Best in Show, Dogwood Arts Festival, 2024
Tennessee Craft Summer Study Scholarship, 2021
First Place, Textile Fabrics Annual Sewing Competition, 2019
Publications
Resurgence & Ecologist Magazine, 2024
Nashville Scene, 2021