Education
Graduate studies, American University, Washington, D.C., 1989.
Studied painting with Don Kimes and Deborah Kahn.
Independent Study, The Art League, Alexandria, Virginia, 1988-1989.
Drawing and painting from model.
B.A., Studio Arts (Painting), Queens College, N.Y., 1988.
Graduated with Honors.
Studied painting with Gabriel Laderman and Rosemarie Beck.
Golden Key National Honor Society, for outstanding academic achievement.
Student in residence, 6 week landscape painting course, Caumsett State Park, Long Island, N.Y., 1986.
Studied with Lincoln Perry and various visiting artists and critics.
Studied painting with James Lecky, former student of Lennart Anderson, 1984.
Other Experience
While living in Saudi Arabia, the artist painted portraits on commission and taught painting privately, 1992-1996.
Artist Statement
When I begin to paint a new painting, I never have a finished image in
my mind. Instead, the painting is a process of listening and becoming
sensitive to the painting's needs - a process that is very exciting to
me.
In my native Finland, where nature is revered, one cannot help but grow
up attuned to nature. Whether painting a landscape, a still life, or a
portrait, I feel the force of nature in everything I paint.
I take photos of places and scenes that interest me. Often, I find
myself in front of a scene, which makes my heart jump in excitement,
because I feel beauty and energy emanating from that spot in nature.
I then paint in my studio from the snapshot, and from my memory of the
feeling the landscape first aroused in me. Trying to recreate the magic
or energy is a process of using the photo as a reference, while the
painting develops independently. I concentrate on the painting's
compositional, pictorial and emotional needs; adding, omitting and
using my imagination and intuition to lead me to find what the painting
wants to become. Thus the landscape begins to become alive with it's
own identity, and energy. The painting holds me in it's spell, until I
have completed it's requirements to become exactly what it desires to
become.
My process of painting a still-life is similar to the way I paint a
landscape, except that I paint from a still-life set up, which I do not
paint until I feel as captivated as I do when painting a landscape.
Often, the background of these paintings might start to remind me of a
landscape or even have some surreal elements, in which case I try to
push the image a bit further.
|
