Elegy Painting

I am a Wichita, Kansas based artist and marketing consultant. I am a Southern California native but relocated to Kansas about 6 years ago to be closer to my husband's family. This allows us both ample space for our various artistic pursuits, our 5 cats, and for extensive gardening. I am from an Italian American family filled with artists. My deceased father was an accomplished painter in Los Angeles and one my motivations is that I hear his voice telling me to paint and many times when I’m in the flow I feel I’m channeling something of him. My sense of color and light and my love for all rich, vibrant, and deep colors comes from my love of gardening, and the wild colors and combinations we see in nature from a sunrise, sunset, storms, the ocean, mountains, deserts, to birds and flowers, and all of the creatures with whom we share our planet. In my own garden I love to cultivate flowers that are anything but subtle or inconspicuous. I have a few distinctive styles of painting that I pursue simultaneously, surrealist dreamlike images and creatures, highly expressive and geometric pieces that I refer to as "lyrical abstraction," and abstract expressionist color field painting explorations directly from the subconscious with no particular idea or image or end point in mind. These are pure emotion. I do love layering with subtle tones, the effect is often very intense with layers showing through in different light and from different angles.