Yuan Butler (b. China) is a visual artist and educator based in Duluth, Georgia. Working primarily in oil painting, she blends abstraction and figuration to examine the emotional landscapes of lived experience and the poetic distance between reality and imagination. Showing a strong interest in art from an early age, Butler received formal academic training in drawing and traditional ink and wash painting in northern China, studying for several years before beginning a traditional career as a buyer at a major steel company. After immigrating to the United States in 2014, she transitioned to a full-time artistic path and later earned her MFA in Painting from the Savannah College of Art and Design (2022). Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including at the Coca-Cola Headquarters, Mason Fine Art, Spruill Gallery, the Hudgens Center for Art & Learning, and various academic and contemporary art venues. Butler’s paintings have been featured in New American Paintings, Create! Magazine, and Visionary Art Collective. She is the recipient of the Cecile Adler Cliffer Memorial Cutting Edge Award from the National Association of Women Artists (2023). In addition to her studio practice, Butler teaches part-time at Georgia Gwinnett College, where she integrates experiential learning and collaborative inquiry into her curriculum. Her current work continues to investigate the interplay between personal history, liminality, and the expressive capacities of color and form.