To describe my work in short, I am a semi-abstract expressionist landscape painter. My pieces are color-oriented and intuitive, celebrating the spirituality and energies I encounter in nature, places, humanity and in the life-bearing qualities from the feminine. Usually, I work from life, en plein air, or photographs to start with, then finish up from memory in my home studio. My artwork is completed in acrylic, watercolor, and/or oils with possible additions of drawing materials. I gravitate toward producing figurative, abstract and landscape work equally, however, my most recent work has been almost exclusively landscape based.

My recent art is centered on the land, our connection to it, and the energy we draw from it. I build upon places I have visited and the overarching emotions I have associated with that specific place; focusing on complementary color usage and the contrast of warm and cool tones for emphasis.

I grew up in Olathe and Overland Park, Kansas and declared at the age of 13 that I “wanted to be an artist.” Shortly thereafter, I drew a portrait of Leonardo DiCaprio (think Romeo and Juliet teenage heart-throb days), made copies at Kinkos, and sold them out of my locker at school - an origin story I will always get a smile from! In Kansas, I had the pleasure of learning from renowned sculpture artist and oil painter, Kwan Wu, as well as from Lee Hammond, bestselling North Light author with a full line of instructional DVDs and more than 30 drawing and painting books.

I went on to get a BFA in Studio Art from Oklahoma Baptist University where I was awarded the Outstanding Senior Artist Award. OBU gave me the reigns to create the education I desired, and I loved it. 

Within six months of graduating college, I found myself in Austin, TX where I showed my artwork in various places, and began growing a family soon after. I found joy in teaching art through working at Painting With a Twist, and found my true teaching voice in facilitating after school art clubs for Elementary school students (Art With Gena!).

As an undercurrent to my work, I’m a mother and an outdoor enthusiast. I now live in Kyle, Texas, pouring into the art community South of Austin. Teaching art to both children and adults, I keep my desire to “give back” satiated, while also continually absorbing from my students a fresh perspective to bring back to my own studio practice. Teaching art is how I give back to the community I am a part of; it gives me a place in this world. Building others in their creative confidence and artistic knowledge is a life goal of mine, right alongside me creating art for people to buy and hang in their homes and to remind us of what is beautiful and good.  

Through my artwork, I seek to create an energetically symbiotic relationship with the community I’m a part of. It becomes a full, life-giving circle, just like the earth and the many symbiotic relationships taking place on it right now. I create art, the viewers receive the energy I put into it; they interact with it, creating more energy; that energy, and sometimes finances, come back to me, spurring me on to make more work. Again, I celebrate these energies.

Now, you can find me around the Buda, TX area building the art community, creating in my home art studio, in local parks and wild spaces, doting on my two kids, experimenting with food, and talking about all things spiritual. I currently teaching fine art courses at Inspired Minds Art Center in Buda, TX and privately in my home stud.