USA - Animal Paintings

Artist Comments
Artist Mary Pratt paints a surreal expressionist habitat surrounding a brightly colored bird perched on a branch. She believes birds are earthly showstoppers and captures them as such. These animals enhance our lives by encouraging us to pause and observe. "Oh look, there goes a beautiful bird—I always stop to look," says Mary.

About the Artist
Mary Pratt, a Georgia...

Artist Comments
Artist Emil Morhardt displays an impressionist portrait of three brown pelicans. The birds sun themselves in the Sea of Cortez against a subtle greenish-blue late afternoon sky. "I hadn't thought about pelicans having a 3D vision like hawks until I was looking over my photos and saw one of the birds staring straight at me," shares Emil. He references his photographs from a National Geographic Zodiac that the pelicans seemed curious about, allowing very close viewing.

About the Artist
Emil Morhardt is an acrylic painter from Santa Barbara, California who expresses his passion for birds through realistic acrylic paintings. He paints at home in a studio room that has large windows and a north-facing view of the mountains. He observes the animals from this window, watching roadrunners, foxes, bobcats, deer, and coyote run by. Surrounded by this wildlife, Emil paints bird portraits reminiscent of those by artist John James Audubon. He bases his paintings off hundreds of photographs he takes of birds in the wild and at wildlife recovery centers. Emil captures the freedom and inquisitiveness that birds display in the natural world. Before painting birds, he painted landscapes of San Francisco and the Eastern Sierra. Emil was raised in the high desert of California and learned to paint from his father, who was one of the early California watercolorists...

Artist Comments
Artist Guigen Zha paints a white horse wading along blooming lotuses in realistic detail. It stands quietly in the shallow waters as the moonlight dreamily glows on the pond. "It seems to have forgotten where it came from and where it is going," says Guigen. He conveys the message of loneliness being a different kind of beauty.

About the Artist
From cross-cultural life experiences, artist Guigen Zha presents conceptual compositions of traditional Chinese art...

Artist Comments
Artist Rachel Srinivasan presents a surreal image of a white bison standing in the middle of 10 swords—nominative to its corresponding card from the tarot d...

Artist Comments
Artist Jeff Fleming describes his painting style as kinetic impressionism. In this piece, a beagle triumphantly retrieves a stick thrown into the ocean. Jeff started the piece with a pencil sketch on the canvas, then with gloved hands, he applied oil paint using his fingers. Details were later added using brushes. Once these layers of paint dried, he moved the piece to his studio floor. "At this point, I whisked paint in random but authoritative strokes - a speckling technique which replicates water splashing."

About the Artist
Artist Jeff Fleming uses fingerpainting to create exuberant portraits of dogs. Growing up in Southern California, Jeff was first introduced to fingerpainting in kindergarten. He painted through high school and college and won several art awards, including Best of Show in a city wide student competition. After graduating with a degree in journalism and advertising, he went to work as an art director. For the next 40 years, he created print, radio and television ads for a number of top agencies. "After retiring in 2019, the clouds of stress and pressure cleared and allowed me to set my creative energy free," says Jeff. He began developing new techniques focused on the excitement and energy of painting. Today, he uses a variety of methods and tools, including fingerpainting wearing nitrile gloves, traditional paint brushes, bamboo shish kebab sticks, kite string, spraypaint and splattering. While working, Jeff always listens to music, including Broadway musicals, dance music and rhythmic Hawaiian tunes.

Words that describe this painting: beagle, dog, pet, impressionism, Iris Scott...

Artist Comments
"This lovely and graceful girl wearing her new red coat greets her smallest cat," says artist Jessica JH Roller. She holds her wide-eyed pet against her chest as if showing the viewer. The cat stares out with open curiosity. A delightful portrait using bold hues and painterly strokes.

About the Artist
A few months after Jessica JH Roller and her husband were married, they adopted two young Siamese cats from a shelter -- Tony and Larry. Jessica quickly fell deeply in love with the kittens and says the cats changed her. "They opened my eyes - I started to notice birds, trees, water, color, everything. It was as if the artist inside had been unleashed.” Jessica uses bold colors and primitive linework to create whimsical, expressive portraits. She intends to capture real or imagined moments that are both common and extraordinary.

Words that describe this painting: girl, folk art...

Artist Comments
Artist Johansen Newman paints a portrait of a young tattooed woman with short feathery hair and a delicate fishnet top. Beautiful s...