About Natalie Jo Wright

Natalie Jo Wright is a multidisciplinary artist and writer based in Madison, Wisconsin. With a BFA in Drawing from the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design and an MFA in Textile Design from the Rhode Island School of Design, she has been making and exhibiting artwork for over 25 years.

Natalie’s creative roots run deep across both sides of her family.

On her mother’s side, her family owned and operated a furniture store in central Illinois from the 1950s through 2001. As a child in the early 80s, she spent hours wandering the showroom, hiding in staged living rooms, and paging through stacks of design catalogues from the 60s and 70s. Those colors, patterns, and textures seeped into her imagination and later resurfaced in her work — especially in her recent series Four-Eyed Cats in Mid-Century Spaces.

On her father’s side, creativity showed up in a mix of ways. Her granddad — affectionately known as “Charlie the Coke Man” — delivered Coca-Cola throughout the region for 25 years. Her grandma painted as a hobby. Her aunt expressed her artistry through fashion, interior design, books, and music. And her uncle pursued a full creative life while working for the U.S. Post Office for 17 years — writing for magazines, publishing books, and painting. He was a major influence on Natalie, as was her dad, a “closet artist” who drew quietly and whose encouragement continues to live in her work.

Across the decades, Natalie’s artwork has evolved alongside her own life. She has moved through many visual languages — from large-scale wildlife portraits to intimate pet commissions, surreal self-portraits, pop-surreal animal mashups, and now the layered, nostalgic interiors of her four-eyed cats. She worked in acrylics for many years before transitioning into oils, drawn to their depth, patience, and richness.

What ties her work together is an ongoing curiosity about emotion, memory, humor, and the uncanny. Her paintings often contain a wink or a tenderness — a fox screaming, a bear resting, or a cat with doubled eyes gazing back with impossible calm. Her writing, shared on Substack, moves through similar emotional terrain: motherhood, art-making, survival, healing, and the very real work of building a creative life while raising a child.

Natalie’s work is held in private collections across the U.S., and her paintings can often be found hanging in local spaces throughout southern Wisconsin.

🖋 Writing

You can follow Natalie’s long-form essays on Substack and join her newsletter to stay updated on new work, shows, and studio reflections.

Current Places to See My Work:
Wendigo Tavern — Stoughton, WI
McFarland Vet Clinic — McFarland, WI
Isthmus Vet Clinic — Madison, WI
Carnelian Gallery — Madison, WI (select originals)

Stockists:
Dune Gift & Home — Stoughton, WI
Reverie — Madison, WI
Johnson Public House — Madison, WI
Sustain LA — Los Angeles, CA
Bowie House — Houston, TX

If you own a brick-and-mortar shop and would like to carry my prints or cards, you can visit my Faire wholesale shop here.