AcrylicHelaine Ettinger
“Hopefully what emerges from my effort is an intimate familiarity with nature and our world that is both recognized and loved by all of us.”
Helaine Ettinger grew up in New York City, where as a teen she spent most Saturdays at the Museum of Modern Art (in Manhattan), attending art classes and becoming intimate with many paintings and the artists who created them. A real love began to flower for Matisse, Monet, Pollock and Mark Rothko, amongst others.
In the early 1970s, she began learning ceramics and after a few years of working on her own was admitted to Alfred University (well known for ceramics), in upstate New York, mostly working with clay, but studying other art forms as well. Soon after she left school she began to make her living as a ceramicist and met with some success. Her work was shown and sold in numerous galleries and shops around the United States. Some photos of her pieces appeared in magazines and a textbook on low fire ceramics.
In the mid 1980s she moved to the Pacific Northwest where she began to paint using watercolor and from there, soon expanded to pastels, and then moved on to acrylic on board and canvas.
She has recently moved to the Inland Empire and presently her work is primarily about exploring color and form, using multiple mediums and modes. Her approach to painting also includes shifting themes and forms, moving between the representational and the abstract. Primarily she chooses to paint landscapes and still lifes attempting to capture the beauty of her surroundings and translating it back using a medium that is both pleasing to the eye and fulfilling to her as a painter.
Hopefully what emerges from her effort is an intimate familiarity with nature and our world that is both recognized and loved by all of us.
