Laurie Meinke Fine Art Printmaking and Paintings

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Artist’s Biography

Laurie Meinke grew up in Southern California. Traveling has been an integral part of her life and has included China, Australia, Europe and South America, as well as many places in the United States. Living in Madrid for nine months in 1975, and traveling all around Europe visiting many of it’s museums, increased her appreciation for art...as did the many hours she spent at the Prado Museum.

Laurie received a B.A. degree from UCLA and has studied art in many cities during her travels, including at New York University, the Cleveland Art Institute, UCLA, the Otis Art Institute, the Printmaking Center of Santa Fe College and over many years with William Riley at Saddleback College. Painting workshops and Plein Air Painting with other artists continue to inspire her. She is a member of the Southern California Plein Air Painters and Laguna Plein Air Painters.

Laurie has received numerous awards and honors. Her works are in many collections, both in the United States and internationally.

ARTIST'S STATEMENT

“I have studied many areas of art as travel and family moves have allowed. First sculpture, then drawing and printmaking, intrigued me — and have led me to oil painting. The different disciplines inform and enrich each other.

“My printmaking begins with inspiration — an idea or image that delights or challenges. I determine which medium will best lend itself to the communication of that idea. For line and texture, perhaps a linocut or woodblock. For playing with color, I choose viscosity etching and monotypes. The experimental nature of printmaking is magic!

“My painting has been an outgrowth of my travels, especially to Greece and Italy. I got hooked on plein air painting when watching an Italian artist paint in the midst of St. Mark’s Square in Venice. I came home to California, and began workshops and classes with outstanding painters in the area. I feel blessed to live in San Juan Capistrano and to have so many beautiful, natural landscapes and seascapes waiting to be painted. I am constantly inspired by being outdoors and I enjoy painting to record my own interpretations of what I see and feel in a way that will evoke a pleasurable response, or heightened understanding, in the viewer.

“I believe that in my work the varied disciplines of drawing, printmaking and oil painting inform and enrich each other.”