Submitted photo Youngstown artist Autumn Joi Ellis is shown in her studio.

Painting is simply one more form of expression for Autumn Joi Ellis.

A writer and poet, Ellis only started painting about seven years ago, but the 1998 Wilson High School graduate and self-taught artist will have a solo exhibition opening Sunday at the Butler Institute of American Art.

She was selected for the opportunity after receiving honorable mention recognition in last year’s National Midyear Exhibition. The Butler changed the Midyear to an every-other-year event, and it will showcase one of the artists from the last exhibition in the alternating years.

Ellis described her reaction when she was told she’d been selected as a combination of disbelief, excitement and anxiety, and it was an opportunity she couldn’t have imagined a decade ago.

“I’ve always known how to draw. It’s an innate talent,” she said. “I had a junior high teacher who told me I was talented, but I did not pursue it as a career, because a lot of artists will tell you, people don’t really take art seriously as a career. I didn’t know it was even a possibility.”

Instead, she studied English and professional writing at Youngstown State University, and the only art classes she took while she was there were art history courses taught by Al Bright.

The Youngstown native didn’t grow up going to the Butler, but she often visited the museum as an adult.

“I always wanted to paint,” she said. “I didn’t start it with the intention of becoming a full-time artist or having it as a career. I just wanted to do it. Then, I guess, I realized I really loved it and I was good at it, so I kept going.”

People are the primary subjects of her work, rendered primarily with oils on large canvases.

“I am primarily a portrait artist because I’m a writer,” Ellis said. “I was taught for writing, so stories and people have an interest to me. Portraits are very similar to storytelling. So it really comes down to the people, comes down to the subject, comes down to that interaction between the person and the person observing the canvas.”

The most important observers to Ellis on Sunday will be the paintings’ subjects, many of whom haven’t seen the completed works in person.

“That’ll be their opportunity to see themselves on canvas. So I am excited for that, because I know the people that I did paint probably never thought they would be a portrait, let alone one in the Butler.”

Like her subjects, Ellis didn’t expect her work would be seen in a museum. But now that she’s prepared her first solo exhibition, she doesn’t want it to be her last.

“It definitely has sparked something where I would love to continue to pursue galleries, openings, things like that. It would be wonderful to have that.”

Ellis said she believes her writing is the more personal of the two art forms, because she put more of herself and her life experiences into her poetry, while her goal with her paintings is to try to capture her subjects. But there is one similarity.

“They both end in the same way, which is creating something that you are very attached to and very proud of and that you love.”

If you go …

WHAT: Autumn Joi Ellis exhibition

WHEN: Sunday through Aug. 24. Hours are 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and noon to 4 p.m. Sunday.

WHERE: Butler Institute of American Art, 524 Wick Ave., Youngstown

HOW MUCH: Admission is free. For more information, go to www.butlerart.com or call 330-743-1107.