I am (Love) Painting

Artist Statement: "I did not choose to be an artist, Art chose me! It found me, healed me and gave me a great reason to live. To me, Art is an act of Love!" ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jeannina Blanco is or has been a member of Southern California Plein Air Painters Association, California Art Club, Artsbridge, Salmagundi Club New York, UNESCO's International Association of Art, Asociación Costarricense de Artistas Visuales and Plein Air Costa Rica. The latter she founded in 2002 and serves as the president of the board. Born in Costa Rica, at age twenty-one moved to California where she took painting workshops with Marilyn Poliquin at Cannery Paints in Newport Beach and later on with artist Hedi Moran in Scottsdale Artist School in Arizona after she recovered from a craniotomy. Her passion for Alla Prima painting was acquired with practice and learning from associated artists of the Southern California Plein Air Painters Association. Blanco opened his first studio in Newport Beach, California in 1998, where she became a very successful emerging artist but returned to Costa Rica in 2002, then began teaching and exhibiting and auctioning her artwork in both countries. Her work has been published in the Orange County Edition of Los Angeles Times and The Artist's Blue Book among other publications including magazines, newspapers and TV interviews in Costa Rica. Her style blends Impressionism and Realism expressively. Her work is collected in over twenty countries including several murals, nearly a thousand paintings, drawings, photographs and a documentary of 55 minutes plus several portraits about the theatre history in Costa Rican which it was declared of Cultural Interest by the Government of that country in 2009 In 2019 as the head director of Plein Air Costa Rica, Blanco joined the organization Unamos Culturas to produce an artists exchange between 15 Polish artists and 15 Costa Rican artists, who exchanged knowledge and experiences in both countries while painting en Plein Air. Also Declared of Cultural Interest by the Government of Costa Rica.