Maybe you’ve driven down Highway 32 in Kamas and noticed a big black building with a fish painted on the side and the words: “Love is not a fish story.” You might have wondered what it means. Inside that renovated barn, with panoramic views of the Utah mountains, abstract artist, Kent Youngstrom, spends seven days a week doing what he loves—painting.
His journey from a windowless warehouse in Charlotte, North Carolina, to a mountainside studio was anything but ordinary. It was shaped by unrelenting passion, a bit of serendipity, and a willingness to embrace imperfection.
“I was just looking for someplace to hide and paint,” Youngstrom says. “And, I wanted some windows with a view.”
He found that space in Kamas—a former barn in desperate need of repairs. With the help of his brother-in-law and support from local businesses, he transformed the dilapidated structure into a fully functional studio. Now, instead of four blank walls, he’s surrounded by an ever-changing landscape of mountains, sky, and sunsets.
Five years ago, if you’d told him he’d be fixing up an old barn with a mountain view, he wouldn’t have believed you.
From Hobby to Career
Though art now consumes his life, it wasn’t always the plan. Initially, Youngstrom pursued a degree in interior design with a focus on commercial spaces, but something about it never quite fit.
“I don’t care what color your curtains or couches are,” he recalls. “I worked in Chicago at design firms… it just didn’t do it for me.”
Painting started as a hobby—a creative outlet that became a side hustle when friends and family offered to pay for his work. A neighborhood picnic unexpectedly changed everything when he met an art rep who connected him with gallery shows in Nashville. That first show was a turning point.
From there, things escalated. His art found its way into the hands of high-profile clients, including Crate & Barrel, where he now produces anywhere from 300 to 1,500 original paintings a year. He’s collaborated with Joanna Gaines for Magnolia, worked with NOBULL designing artwork for shoes, and his pieces are available wholesale at retailers like Walmart and Wayfair.
Despite his success, he still grapples with the idea of selling his work. “It’s so hard to sell yourself. Like, it’s so hard to stand up and say, ‘Buy my stuff,’” he confesses. “Any book that starts with imposter syndrome, I’ll read it.”
The Process & The Struggle
His artistic process is fluid and intuitive—he starts multiple paintings at once, leaving them unfinished until the moment feels right. Words play a significant role in his work, a habit that traces back to his school years when, instead of sketching, he found himself repeatedly writing out the alphabet.
“When I started, I did words, and I started to listen to everybody who said, ‘He’s just doing words,’” he says. “When you start as an artist and have no idea what you’re doing, you listen to people. You’re like, ‘Oh, people don’t like the words.’ So, I listened to that and didn’t use words for almost two years, which was hard.”
Then, all of a sudden, people started asking where they went. That’s when he realized they needed to come back. Those two years weren’t wasted, though. He refined his style, learned new techniques, and when he reintroduced words into his paintings, his work resonated with people in a way it never had before.
His approach blends different materials—various types of paint, mixed media elements like concert tickets, love letters, and pages from books—anything that adds depth and storytelling to the piece.
“Every good piece of art needs something in it that doesn’t belong,” Youngstrom says. “Mess it up. Tear it, glue something weird to it. That’s where the magic happens.”
He embraces imperfection, often telling struggling artists to destroy their work and rebuild it. “Just keep playing around with it and try new things. Don’t worry about what you feel like when you mess it up.”
But for all his artistic freedom, the business side of art takes its toll. When asked if he ever feels burnt out, he responds without hesitation: “Always.”
Although he loves painting, fulfilling orders is different. “You know how they say, ‘If you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life?’ That’s the worst thing in the world. They should teach, ‘Instead of choosing your passion, choose your struggle.’ You’re going to struggle no matter what you do—if you can choose what it is you struggle with, and if you’re okay with that, you win.”
The reality of being an artist is full of ups and downs. “It’s hard to have 35 to 50 paintings in here that no one seems to want, but occasionally someone will come in, and one will speak to them. That’s hard on yourself. It’s hard to make things that don’t fly off the shelf or that people look at and go, ‘I could have made that.’”
Connection & Community
One of Youngstrom’s greatest joys is creating deeply personal commissions for clients. He enjoys sitting down with people, learning about their lives, and translating their stories onto canvas.
“My ideal client is someone who comes to me and wants me to make them something that means something to them,” he says. “The best art, to me, tells a story. When they get it and love it, then it means something to them, and I’m the only person I know who could have made that for them. That’s a bucket nobody could ever fill.”
He’s no stranger to storytelling—both in his art and in the community that surrounds him. Out here, in a place where the land itself is a canvas of shifting colors and seasons, stories are told as they’ve always been—over coffee, in the studio, or by a fire under the stars. And like any outdoor community, some of those stories get stretched just a little.
The fish someone caught gets a little bigger each time the tale is told. The trail they hiked becomes steeper, the adventure wilder. It’s part of the rhythm of life out here.
But love? Love is different. Love isn’t a fish story—something to be exaggerated or made up for the sake of a better narrative. It’s in the details—the way someone looks at a painting and sees a piece of themselves in it, the way an artist pours something real onto a canvas, knowing not everyone will understand.
Kent Youngstrom doesn’t paint illusions. He paints truth—sometimes messy, sometimes raw, but always real.
Despite his deep connection to his work, there’s always a vulnerability that comes with putting it out into the world. “My biggest struggle is to be as honest and vulnerable as I want to be,” he says.
Art is personal. Each time he puts something out there, it’s like exposing a little piece of himself. The worry of how he is perceived, especially by those closest to him, is an inner battle he fights each time he releases something that could be labeled controversial. But he’s learned to lean into it, embrace the nuances of life, and translate them into something meaningful.
Youngstrom takes the little things in life seriously, constantly looking at what most might see as meaningless and making it meaningful. To him, there’s beauty in the details—in the things people often overlook.
And if you ever find yourself in a conversation with him, be careful what you say—because if he likes it, he just might paint it.
