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ELM

A painter based out of Atlanta Ga

Eryka McNulty

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Originals

Rough Waters

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Overview

Chores

About @Softlyelm ✧₊⁺

Hi, I’m Eryka, known as Softlyelm on social media.

I am a painter, photographer and ceramist

from Atlanta Ga, currently pursuing a BFA

in Fine Arts at Savannah College of Art and Design,

graduating in 2025.

My work has themes of belonging, transience, and

the tension between freedom and confinement,

drawing from my childhood experiences in

foster care.

Through my work, I seek to amplify the

voices of those who have experienced

neglect and foster care, offering

acknowledgment and understanding

while fostering conversations about identity,

belonging, and resilience.

Artist Statement ⋆˚✿˖°

My work explores the fragile, fleeting moments of my foster care journey—a time marked by displacement, uncertainty, and the quiet struggle to hold onto myself.

On my first day in care, I was removed from my initial placement for not appearing "happy enough" and for sneaking in a watercolor palette. I wasn’t a thief, nor did I like lying, but something in me knew that without it, I would lose myself—that I might become hollow, unrecognizable.

That first night passed in a blur. Still to this day, I couldn't tell which made my caretaker more upset, (Not looking happy or the watercolor palette) but suddenly, the woman who was supposed to care for me was screaming at me for my expression. The numbness lingered, but now shame seeped in, and all I wanted was to disappear.

These works capture the numbness, the quiet sadness of being severed from everything familiar—my brother, my belongings, my sense of safety. The screaming, shame, and desperate wish to vanish. Yet even in the instability, small acts of creation became my lifeline.

After being moved to a group home where my paints were confiscated ("for fairness"), I found solace in a brightly colored playroom meant for younger children. There, I spent hours piecing together puzzles with missing pieces, drawing new friends, and weaving endless friendship bracelets.

And every day after school, I stole one extra hour in the art room, clinging to the paints that reminded me: I am still here. I am still me.

My paintings are about those fragile moments of survival—the stolen creativity, the quiet defiance, the small, persistent acts of self-preservation in a system that often forgets the humanity of those within it.