Speaker: Kayla Silber, Augmented Reality Artist & Author

My passion for the arts began at the ripe old age of 2, when I began occupying myself for hours creating complex architectural structures out of color-coordinated building blocks.

Competing passions for acting, dancing, and singing manifested themselves slightly later in life at the age of 4 though my brilliant living room portrayals of Jennifer Beals in Flashdance, with whom I was obsessed.

Ultimately, visual art won the battle, and after honing my graphic design skills at Parsons in NY, I worked as an Art Director for some of the top ad agencies in Manhattan, including Saatchi & Saatchi and Grey Advertising. In 2009, I moved to LA where over the course of 9 years, I transitioned into the role of creative director for the one of the largest Fashion Tradeshow companies in the world.

While working as a creative director, I decided to revisit my passion for traditional art and in my spare time, began creating a body of work dealing with themes of the divine feminine. I discovered Augmented Reality in 2018, taught myself how to animate, and very quickly established myself as one of the first augmented reality artists in LA.

My mixed media pieces are constructed from thousands of photographs I have taken all over the world. I painstakingly silhouette, disassemble and reassemble my photos to create new configurations and sculptural forms that elevate the ordinary every day to the extraordinary and otherworldly. Using AfterEffects, I revisit the digital iteration and hand-animate the elements to reveal an even richer narrative full of wonder, surprise, and hidden meaning visible only by viewing the painting through an augmented reality app. The process of creating each piece brings experiences into my life that deepen my connection to myself, push me to grow, reveal and heal deep wounds, and give me direct access to a well of knowledge that resides deep within. My art is an intuitive and mystical journey into higher levels of consciousness.