Artist Biography

I loved art since I was a child. As a teen, I did well in my high school art classes creating mostly black and white detailed work in pencil and ink, but I felt like I needed to play it safe and follow my other interest in computer programming. Twenty years later, after attending Burning Man for two years, I decided I really needed to paint and get in touch with my creative side again because I was tired of playing it safe. I rediscovered my true passion for art through painting. I started taking painting classes in 2011, and I knew I had found my true calling in life when I finished my first Lake Tahoe sunset painting. My first painting class was called, “I Love Color”; At that time, I didn’t know if I loved color, but I knew I wanted to learn to paint. Now 7 years later, I can say, I love color. I feel like I have stepped out of the darkness (working in black and white back in high school) and into the light (painting in color).I started painting with acrylics, but quickly moved to oil painting. Then in 2016, I started creating Encaustic (wax) paintings because I love the texture and vibrant transparent colors. I just started selling my paintings in 2017. I have had an art show in Kings Beach, CA and sold my paintings at multiple outdoor fine art events.

Artist Statement

The Lake Tahoe Area and the Sierra Nevada Mountains are my inspiration for most of my paintings. I love to capture the sun on Lake Tahoe in the morning, the turquoise blue of Lake Tahoe’s clear water, and the last rays of the setting sun as the sky turns red and reflect into the water. I usually work with a limited color palette and simplify the landscape to emphasize the colors that touch my soul. My paintings can range from vivid and bright to darker low light paintings showing the last light in the sky. I enjoy using texture in the sky or rocks in contrast to the smooth calm waters in many of my paintings. My oil paintings use color to show texture, but my Encaustic work uses varying thickness of wax to create texture you can feel, and this is why I love working in these two different mediums.