Rokita

In Boise, Idaho, [Joelle Ater](https://www.cohart.com/joellesart/profile) has been quietly (and not so quietly) leading a movement. On canvas, she’s an abstract expressionist painting with a jazz-like rhythm. Every brushstroke feels improvised, alive, and deeply personal! Off canvas, she’s a community architect, creating hubs where art isn’t just on display, but lived, experimented with, and celebrated.

As both an artist and educator, Ater sees art as a powerful tool for unlocking creative potential and accessing deep emotions. Her work has been featured in British Vogue and Artist Closeup Magazine, and her next exhibition will be at Art Shopping at Carrousel du Louvre in Paris. Her studio practice looks a lot like a dance: paint flung, scraped, layered, and coaxed into existence with full-bodied energy, Ater often literally dancing while she paints. 



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Watching her work, you can tell she’s not holding back. And that same no-guardrails approach fuels the community spaces she’s building.

**The Art Revel Revolution**

Take Art Revel, her Boise gallery. It’s less a white-cube gallery and more a creative playground. Think exciting exhibitions, workshops that feel like jam sessions, AI+ design competitions, and installations that encourage you to step in, not just step back. There’s a lounge where art mixes freely with coffee and cocktails, and a library where dog-eared books spark unexpected ideas. With Ater’s own personal working studio in the space, it’s immediately activated in ways that a traditional gallery never could be.



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_Photo by Art Revel Gallery_

Another one of the biggest activators of Ater’s space are the hands-on workshops. In early August of 2025, Ater’s gallery was the official host of CreativeCamp by Basecamp Tech Fest. Mural artist and educator Luke DeKneef taught participants how to create a mini-mural on canvas using his unique process that he’s honed over the last 15 years, as well as how to use Procreate for the demo process. It was an immersive experience that even allowed participants to stay longer and get 1:1 feedback from DeKneef on their portfolios. 

In October, Ater and two other artists, Braelyn Moorhead and Sarah Haris will get together for a live “Art in Motion” event to weave their three unique and expressive visual languages into a single masterpiece. Guests will arrive to hors d’oeuvres, curated drinks, and the opportunity to connect with the community while watching the collaborative painting unfold. This is not just a buying opportunity, but a way to bring everyone together and truly make art the event.

When Ater founded Art Revel, she pushed boundaries to create a space where creatives and dreamers can come together and express themselves through art. By designing a place where creativity isn’t just displayed but actively practiced, she’s turned the act of making art into a shared experience. Painters, designers, technologists, and curious neighbors can all find common ground here, proving that when you give people permission to create together, you’re not just filling a gallery with new art, you’re fueling a true community.

It’s wild, it’s participatory, and, most importantly, it’s a way of making art feel like a shared adventure for creatives, especially for those who may typically make art solo.


**Why It Matters Now**

In a time when most of us spend too many hours staring at glowing rectangles, Ater insists on the power of the physical, the embodied, the communal. Her spaces are antidotes to isolation: part gathering place, part laboratory, part art party.

She believes everyone has creativity wired into them. Her work as an educator and community builder is proof. The emphasis is less on gatekeeping and more on opening doors, pulling up chairs, and handing you a brush (or maybe an AI tool).

And honestly? That matters. Because art that only hangs on walls often misses its chance to build bridges, or, it works more slowly. Ater’s approach ensures the bridges are sturdy, vibrant, and walked across often. 



**Remixing the Greats for a New Generation**


Ater’s practice doesn’t exist in a vacuum. You can spot the DNA of 20th-century icons in what she’s doing, though always with her own, very-specific spin.
- Jackson Pollock threw his whole body into painting; Ater does too, but she throws it equally into building community.
- Kandinsky and Miró sought to make music visible; Ater channels her love of Jazz and dance into brushstrokes, and then turns that into a collective conversation and experience.
- The Bauhaus wanted to break down walls between art, design, and life; Ater is living that spirit today, complete with cross-disciplinary mashups.
- Like Diego Rivera, she sees art as a public good. Rivera used murals; Ater uses workshops, festivals, and collaborative spaces to enrich the community.

She’s not just echoing the past, she’s remixing it for a century that we believe desperately needs art as connective tissue.




Joelle Ater isn’t just churning out abstract expressionist paintings for collectors. She’s building a living, breathing ecosystem where expression and community feed one another. The way she paints; messy, physical, full-throttle, reflects the same way she builds community through art: open, experimental, and wildly human.

In what can often feel like a digitally fragmented world, that’s no small feat. She’s proving that art, and artists themselves, can be the glue that holds us together. Art is not just something to look at, it can also be something we do together, a verb for collective creativity. And if Art Revel is any indication, the future of art is no longer just about solitary genius - it’s about collective brilliance fueled by the kind of energy Ater throws into everything she does.


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Discover Boise artist Joelle Ater, an abstract expressionist and community builder who transforms painting and Art Revel into a movement.

Joelle Ater and the Art of Togetherness

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