Bio
Raised in rural western Michigan, I excelled at drawing and painting from an early age. I began working as a graphic designer in 1973 at the age of 16 and went on to have a long career as an award-winning advertising art director. In 2020, I began pursuing painting full-time.
My work is heavily influenced by my time in the advertising industry where I honed my skills as a visual communicator and storyteller. Although I have taken an introductory college painting class, I am otherwise self-taught as an artist.
My paintings have been selected by juries in national and international competitions and exhibitions including the International FiKVA Award for Painters in Belgium, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Nashville, Manifest Gallery in Cincinnati, and the American Women Artists Association. My work has also been featured in leading art publications such as Artists Magazine, Create!, and Studio Visit Magazine, and is held in several private collections.
I currently live in Nashville, Tennessee.
Artist Statement
My hyper-realistic still life paintings begin with an intuitive process. I gather objects not with a specific story in mind, but by responding to symbolism, memory, and an instinctive sense that certain things belong together. Every composition grows from a single object that has captured my curiosity, something that seems to have more to say than its surface suggests. As I add other objects, connections appear and unexpected stories begin to emerge.
I am drawn to things that carry meaning beyond their physical presence — anatomical models, vintage toys, typewriters, glass figurines, advertising ephemera. Each one functions as both personal relic and cultural artifact, holding individual memory and shared experience simultaneously. My titles reflect this intent. Rather than being descriptions of arrangements, they're fragments of larger stories, deliberately left open for the viewer to complete.
With the objects in place, I turn to the discipline of hyperrealism. Working in oil, I pursue a command of surface, light, and texture that asks the eye to question what is painted and what is real. I am inspired by the photorealist tradition of Audrey Flack and Ralph Goings, and the narrative sensibility of contemporary hyperrealist Scott Fraser, all artists who proved that carefully chosen objects could carry deep personal and cultural meaning. From that tradition I take both technical discipline and the conviction that ordinary objects are never merely ordinary.
For me, the still life is not an endpoint but a doorway. My work is a space where intuition and precision meet, where the imagined becomes real, and where nothing is simply still.
Exhibitions & Competitions
2025
Boynes Art Prize 12th Edition, International Art Competition, 3rd Place Winner, Melbourne, Australia
Homiens Art Prize, International Art Competition Spring 2025, Highly Commended Artist, New York, NY
Almenara Art Prize, International Painting Competition, Four Works Selected for Online Exhibition, Córdoba, Spain
FiKVA Award for Painters, Top 50, International Juried Exhibition, FiKVA-foundation (Figuratieve Kunst Vandaag), Antwerp, Belgium
CollexArt Grand Prize Art Call, International Juried Exhibition, Artist Profile Winner, Portland, ME
2024
Allied Artists of America 111th Annual Exhibition, National Invitational Exhibition, Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio
Hyperrealism, Group Exhibition, Blue Spiral 1 Gallery, Asheville, NC
2023
Annual Online Juried Show, National Juried Exhibition, American Women Artists
Up in Arms, Juried Exhibition, The Museum of Contemporary Art Nashville (MOCAN) in partnership with Cë Gallery and Arts4Impact, Nashville, TN
Still, International Juried Exhibition, Awarded Best of Slow, ArtFluent.com
FiKVA Award for Painters 2023, International Juried Exhibition, Top 100, FiKVA-foundation (Figuratieve Kunst Vandaag), Antwerp, Belgium
At Rest: A Still Life Invitational, Group Exhibition, Customs House Art Museum, Clarksville, TN
Pushing Forward Reaching Back, National Juried Exhibition, American Women Artists, Brookgreen Gardens Museum, Murrells Inlet, SC
She, International Juried Exhibition, ArtFluent.com
2022
FiKVA Award for Painters 2022, Top 35, International Juried Exhibition, FiKVA-foundation (Figuratieve Kunst Vandaag), Antwerp, Belgium
Mood, International Juried Exhibition, ArtFluent.com
Mimic, International Juried Exhibition, Manifest Gallery, Cincinnati, OH
Spring Online Exhibition, National Juried Exhibition, American Women Artists
Feminist Insight: Telling Her Story, National Juried Exhibition, Ellington-White Contemporary Gallery, Fayetteville, NC
Breaking Through: The Rise of American Women Artists, National Juried Exhibition, American Women Artists, Customs House Art Museum, Clarksville, TN
2021
Narrative Still Life, National Juried Exhibition, Catholic Art Institute, Chicago, IL
ViewPoint 53, Cincinnati Art Club’s National Juried Exhibition, Cincinnati, OH
Publications and online features
2026 / Visual Art Journal, Interview
2025 / Boynes Artist Award, Interview
2025 / Create! Magazine, Interview
2025 / Create! Magazine, Issue 52
2024 / Art Fluent, Curator's Choice, March Issue
2023 / Studio Visit Magazine, Volume 51
2022 / Create! Magazine, Issue 33
2022 / Artist Magazine, Artists Over 60, March/April Issue
Memberships
American Women Artists, Associate With Distinction / website
Newsletter Archive
2025
January / An invitation to take a closer look.
2025
April / Pause. Reset. Refresh.
2024
March / A leap of faith.
2023
June / Slow art.
2022
December / The art of persistence.
May / What's this all about?
February / A work in progress.