I explore social and environmental issues as a visual artist. My paintings are either acrylic or encaustic (hot beeswax mixed with pigment) and can be commissioned by contacting me at ariyah.april.art@gmail.com.

I’m also an experienced portrait and event photographer. In 2015-2016, my work was been exhibited in San Francisco, New York, and across North Carolina. I learned to paint and photograph not at school, but under the wings of established painters and photographers.

In 2015, I shot for the Environmental Defense Fund’s Earth Street social movement project on Tumblr and Instagram, sharing inspiring stories of the environmentalist next door. Committed to environmentalism, I am a 2014 National Fellow of the Environmental Leadership Program.

I earned an MBA in Sustainable Enterprise and Consulting at UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School in 2009, and a bachelor’s degree in English and Women’s Studies at Duke University in 2001.