meet the artist | Louise genetti
Q&A | ask the artist
how did you start painting?
In 2003 at age 18, I watched my grandmother’s life coming to an end from cancer and it prompted me to buy a watercolor set. I painted my first painting at her hospice bedside as she took her last breaths. After that, I often turned to painting in my 20’s as a way to process and heal from an adventurous dating life. Each time I picked up a brush, I found comfort in just feeling the flow of emotion leaving me and becoming something new. In the years to come, no matter the day jobs I had, I would continue to return to this refuge called creativity in the evenings and weekends.
artist | astrologer | caregiver?
Yassss!!! After nearly two decades in human services, I hit pause on the healthcare grind in the summer of 2021, leaving my corporate job in critical care recruiting to focus on what I thought would be my art. Art had always been my personal sanctuary, and I imagined this would be my next chapter. But quickly after unplugging from the matrix, I realized my time with my ailing father was very limited.
With that in mind, I shifted my focus to securing 100% service-connected disability with the US Veterans Administration for my dad, a Vietnam Veteran. I didn’t realize then how much my past work—supporting the Autism community in college and nearly a decade in healthcare—was preparing me for this deeply personal role as my dad’s advocate and caregiver before his passing in October 2022.
Astrology had been part of my life since 2017, when I began studying it in depth and, by passionate requests from friends, started offering professional readings in early 2021. In 2020, when relocating my Dad to be near me, I found his birth certificate.
What I saw in his natal chart stunned me. All the questions no doctor, psychiatrist, clinician, or even family member could answer about him were reflected right there in his chart. This new lens dissolved years of resentment and frustration, replacing them with compassion and empathy. It helped me meet him exactly where he was, which became one of the most grounding tools in my caregiving journey.
That experience now shapes everything I do—blending art, astrology, and advocacy to help others find deeper understanding and compassion in their own lives and relationships.
did you go to art school?
Nope! I make art by following my heart, curiosity, and love for color—experimenting and going with the flow, especially through the unknown where the magic happens. A Charlotte-born city mouse turned Asheville creative, I earned a B.A. in Sociology and Anthropology from UNC Asheville, and that lens of culture, connection, and personal expression still shapes the colorful, meaningful life I create today.
what mediums do you create with?
Mostly acrylics, watercolors and mixed media. I often use paints or materials that change appearance under different tones of light or as the viewer moves across them, like really chunky glitter, metallic or iridescent paints, gold flakes etc. I like to experiment with unconventional supplies too, from house paint to construction supplies from my husband’s home remodeling projects to weaving velvet fibers into canvas! To me, making art is really about enjoying the process of playful experimentation so I like to learn as I go and try supplies or brands that will offer the most reliable long-term quality, while staying true to my wild and playful nature!
How do you figure out what to make?
I’m an abstract expressionist painter so my painting process is about claiming total freedom to just make whatever I feel inclined to create in the heat of the moment. I often work fast in a subconscious flow and enjoy experimenting with new mediums and styles. Sometimes I pull inspiration from something I see in a magazine with colors that pull me in or something I just feel from witnessing others in my daily work.