bio

Halie Torris is a figurative artist working in oils. She was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and attended Seton Hill University where she majored in graphic design. Six months upon graduating from college and receiving her first design job, Halie picked up and moved to the eastern shore of Maryland. After spending all of her life living in the same place, she felt a draw towards the ocean and a change of scenery to further develop her work. Her true passion has always been nestled within painting and her art practice. Solitude and isolation by the coast plays a huge role in allowing the flow of new ideas.

Through her knowledge in the digital realm of design as well as in the fine arts, she aims to merge the two mediums in her paintings. In 2019, she began to utilize video by sharing her work through this visual medium along with her art process. The vulnerability that came with sharing her process through storytelling and narratives through music allowed her to become a full-time artist and to support herself independently through her online community.

Halie’s focus is to create narratives with the figures in her work by using the power of body language to express sapphic feelings of love and longing. The core of her work is about creating a safe space and representation in the fine arts for women to love whomever they wish to and to accept their own authentic stories. In 2020, she began working as a full-time artist and creating large, pictorial oil paintings in her studio just fifteen minutes from the ocean. Currently, she is creating a body of work that dives deeper into identity and the complexities of relationships/situationships between women. Her future endeavors include public exhibitions and bringing her online community together to view her work and experience it in person.

My art treats women as subjects - souls - to be understood, not objects to be owned, ogled, or fetishized. Using large-scale, figurative oil paintings I express and explore my sexuality and sensuality creating a safe space for those who question how safe, how valid, their love is.

artist statement

I explicitly paint from the sapphic gaze, liberating and celebrating voices and stories that have historically been muted, distorted, or discarded by the male, patriarchal, gaze - including my own. My art treats women as subjects - souls - to be understood, not objects to be owned, ogled, or fetishized. Using large-scale, figurative oil paintings I express and explore my sexuality and sensuality creating a safe space for those who question how safe, how valid, their love is.

I consider myself a storyteller at heart. My paintings reach out and invite you into the narrative, allowing you intimate glimpses into the incredibly human heart of sapphic love. From serene fantasies to stormy longing, from fiery want to icy heartache, each piece is a reminder that our love has always been valid and our stories deserve to be told.