LOCAL ARTIST - AMEI PAPITTO

-I grew up in a village with meadows, hills, trees, and forests, and nature is still the inspiration for my paintings today. Both my parents loved to paint and my father was a jazz musician.

-Since childhood, I have been inspired by the Song period Chinese ink on rice paper paintings, Hiroshige's woodprints and the bold colors of the German expressionists. When I went to art school and painted from life, I started learning from the impressionists.

-I find impressionism suits me best to capture nature - the loose brushstrokes let me capture the movements of clouds, waves and leaves and the constantly changing shadows, colors and light of the outdoors.

- I studied at the Art Students' League in New York City and the Lyme
Academy of Fine Arts, in Old Lyme Connecticut. I studied figure drawing, portrait painting, both in oil and pastel.
Towards the end of my 5 year training I discovered pleinair painting.

- In 2009 I moved to El Cerrito (just across the bridge from San Francisco) together with my family.

- - I paint all my landscapes locally, outside, (pleinair), not in the studio. The wind, the sun, the moving clouds and waves seem to help me along in my painting process, even if I have to brace against the wind and the cold and my paintings have blown off my easel and landed in the sand sometimes!

- I use oil paints. I love the feeling and the flow of oil paints, the versatility.

I have painted and sold paintings all my life (besides taking a degree in Linguistics, raising three kids and teaching in Public High schools)

My hobbies are Lindy Hop dancing and writing fiction

Hope to meet you at one of my AGSF shows, it has been such a pleasure to make friends with my art! happy to answer any questions - or arrange a studio visit in El Cerrito!