After spending childhood in love with drawing, discovering painting in high school, and graduation college with a degree in Studio Art, I received my masters degree in Medical Illustration in 2005. Through working as a medical illustrator my love of realism developed. By chance I dabbled in plein air painting as a young 20-something, and was able to peek inside a new world that I wouldn’t fully discover until much later. After working in medical illustration as well as following life’s twists and turns for several years, I again revisited my greatest creative passion: oil painting. At that point I committed to painting – primarily landscapes – and never looked back.
I’m now also a mother in a military family, and my life has taken me coast to coast encountering new climates and cultures along the way. These unique scenes from all over the USA have intensified my love of the outdoors and serve as some of the inspiration for my landscape paintings. More of my inspirations are simply the peace, calm, and tranquility that solitude in nature brings, as well a the beauty found in ordinary life. Life’s chaos and uncertainty, judgements and opinions, all silenced with a cool breeze through the leaves in a forest, or when hearing a calm trickling stream in the middle of a bright summer day. My paintings beat with this heart and soul of natural peace.
For me, there is no substitute for taking in a scene directly in nature, so it’s no surprise that’s where I prefer to paint. I capture the shadows, light, and depths of colors which can best be seen by the human eye painting on location. I often bring these studies back to complete in the studio once I have all the information I need while staying true to the original feel of the scene. Attaining a unique feeling for each location I paint is paramount in my art. My landscape paintings are a piece of my experience of the beauty and truth in nature; each a unique tribute to the wonders captured there.
View Debra Dartez’s collection at the Stravitz Gallery.