Lonna Coleman
Acrylic painting; Photography
[email protected]
Facebook: ellecolemanphotoart
Instagram: @ellecolemanphotoart
[email protected]
Facebook: ellecolemanphotoart
Instagram: @ellecolemanphotoart
I am a part-time resident of Arnold, and with my husband John, also maintain residences in the Bay Area and La Quinta in the California desert. Despite being 5th generation Californian, I often believe I should have been born French; my travels to France and other European countries have heavily influenced my artistic preferences.
A 40-year career in banking was in some ways a poor fit for my creative self, though one assignment gave me the opportunity to manage interior design and art selection for high-end Wealth Management Centers. This assignment helped awaken my creative instincts, which ultimately led to my current artistic focus on photography and painting. Having thoroughly exhausted the analytic side of my brain in financial services, I now live a thoroughly right-brained life, with post-retirement dedication to nurturing my artistic talents.
My art conveys my passion for vivid colors. Picking up a brush in the first months of early retirement, I found joy in a place inside that I didn’t know existed. I continue to marvel at this unexpected discovery and joy.
The beautiful colors of Provence and the Mediterranean coast made a lasting impact to my visual memory. The paintings of Matisse and other artists who lived in or visited French villages conveyed the beauty via their style, and I am capturing that abundant beauty as I have seen it. Painted brighter than reality, perhaps, but that is what lives in my memory and gives me joy.
My paintings could be considered “Naïve Art” which was originally defined as “visual art that is created by a person who lacks the formal education and training that a professional artist undergoes (in anatomy, art history, technique, perspective, ways of seeing.” But post-Henri Rosseau, the first famous Naïve Artist, today the term describes work characterized by a “childlike simplicity and frankness, and often there's an awkward relationship with the formal qualities of painting, for instance ignoring the traditional rules of perspective.” What great characteristics to emulate!
If the pieces shared here either evoke beautiful memories, or, make you want to “step into” and experience the scene, my objective as an artist will have been accomplished
A 40-year career in banking was in some ways a poor fit for my creative self, though one assignment gave me the opportunity to manage interior design and art selection for high-end Wealth Management Centers. This assignment helped awaken my creative instincts, which ultimately led to my current artistic focus on photography and painting. Having thoroughly exhausted the analytic side of my brain in financial services, I now live a thoroughly right-brained life, with post-retirement dedication to nurturing my artistic talents.
My art conveys my passion for vivid colors. Picking up a brush in the first months of early retirement, I found joy in a place inside that I didn’t know existed. I continue to marvel at this unexpected discovery and joy.
The beautiful colors of Provence and the Mediterranean coast made a lasting impact to my visual memory. The paintings of Matisse and other artists who lived in or visited French villages conveyed the beauty via their style, and I am capturing that abundant beauty as I have seen it. Painted brighter than reality, perhaps, but that is what lives in my memory and gives me joy.
My paintings could be considered “Naïve Art” which was originally defined as “visual art that is created by a person who lacks the formal education and training that a professional artist undergoes (in anatomy, art history, technique, perspective, ways of seeing.” But post-Henri Rosseau, the first famous Naïve Artist, today the term describes work characterized by a “childlike simplicity and frankness, and often there's an awkward relationship with the formal qualities of painting, for instance ignoring the traditional rules of perspective.” What great characteristics to emulate!
If the pieces shared here either evoke beautiful memories, or, make you want to “step into” and experience the scene, my objective as an artist will have been accomplished