Kayla Mary Jane: Image, Faith, and Authorship

Kayla Mary Jane is interested in controlling her narratives rather than participating in those already established. Moving between film, painting, and performance, the New York–based artist approaches each medium as a site of authorship, where image, intention, and identity are negotiated on her own terms.

Trained as an actor with a BFA in Drama from New York University, Kayla’s early career was rooted in performance. But in 2020, during the isolation of the pandemic, her practice expanded. What began as exploration has since developed into a growing body of work, including commissions from institutions such as Florida State University and the Naptown African American Theatre Collective, as well as private collectors.

Still, it is her shift behind the camera that marks a more decisive turn. As co-creator of the series Bopsy, Kayla temporarily stepped away from acting auditions to focus on building narratives from the inside out. For her, the move is less about medium and more about control.

Defining Success Through Story

“I think success is having autonomy over the story,” she says. “Being able to navigate where it’s going and what I want the intention of it to be.”

That insistence on authorship extends into her painting practice, where her work has become increasingly shaped by faith. Spirituality is not treated as aesthetic, but as alignment. Something that actively reshapes what she chooses to depict and how.

“I do want to do more Christian pieces,” she explains. “For it to reflect my walk.”

As her beliefs have evolved, so has her visual language. Certain imagery that once appeared in her work now feels incompatible with her present self.

“This painting with smoking doesn’t reflect me anymore,” she says. “I can’t paint something like that again.”

Rather than static style, Kayla’s work operates as a record of personal transformation, each piece marking a shift in values, focus, or intention.

Her Process

This is particularly visible in The Dreamer Sequence, an ongoing series of portraits depicting friends immersed in their own worlds. The works center intimacy and everyday ritual, positioning aspiration not as spectacle, but as something lived and practiced. Her process is slow, often unfolding over months, allowing each painting to develop with the same patience it depicts.

“The one with all the women in it took me a year,” she recalls. “I was doing it in pieces.”

Creating Her Own References

Increasingly, Kayla is also reclaiming the source material behind her work. Where she once relied heavily on found imagery, she now prioritizes photographs she takes herself—an intentional shift toward ownership not just of the final image, but of its origin.

“I’ve always been heavily based on references,” she says. “But now I want to make my own references.”

That distinction is critical. In a visual landscape saturated with recycled imagery, Kayla’s refusal to depend on pre-existing sources becomes a quiet but deliberate stance.

“A lot of images are mix-matched references,” she notes. “Especially with Black art, it means so much more when it’s original. It puts you in a different tier.”

Visual Instinct and Influence

This attention to image-making extends into her relationship with cinema. Films inform not just her storytelling, but her sense of atmosphere and emotional pacing. Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight remains a defining reference point, particularly in its ability to render intimacy and pain with restraint.

“It’s painful to watch, but in a beautiful way,” she says. “They capture these quiet moments… that kind of storytelling inspires painting too.”

Across mediums, Kayla’s ideas begin visually, often as fleeting images that linger until they demand resolution.

“Something will just rest on my spirit,” she explains. “And then I start seeing visuals.”

That intuitive process is balanced by a consistent search for mood. Among the artists she returns to is painter Danielle McKinney, whose atmospheric interiors and restrained compositions resonate with Kayla’s own sensibility.

“She creates a mood,” Kayla says. “I love her moods.”

The Art of Looking

Living and working in New York continues to shape that sensibility. Regular visits to institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art inform her understanding of scale, composition, and art history offering both reference and contrast to her own evolving practice.

Regardless of medium, whether film, painting, or performance, the through line remains constant: control of the narrative. Kayla’s work resists passive participation, instead positioning itself as self-defined and self-directed.

“I have so much more I want to say,” she says.

It’s this insistence on authorship, on alignment, on image as something claimed rather than borrowed, that places her work in a state of active becoming. Not fixed, not fully resolved, but intentional. And entirely her own.

You can discover more about Kayla Mary Jane’s on Instagram at @thekaylamaryjane, and her series “Bopsy” can be found on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok at @bopsytv.

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