LARA RALSTON
A Southern California native and award-winning artist, I've been creating art ever since I first picked up a crayon.…to write meticulous O’s and H’s on the fireplace bricks (sorry Mom, I had a vision). My degree in English and writing, plus my background in music and theater, make storytelling an integral part of how I express myself.
Through my art, I have continuously striven to teach myself to paint the beautiful stories I see in the natural world around me.
Everything I paint has a story, as I attempt to convey a captured, crystalized moment snatched out of a dynamic timeline. A bird caught preening his feathers, an octopus caught mid-escape, a wild rabbit caught with a mouthful of clover.Commissioned pieces are a unique opportunity to tell the intimate stories of the people who will own them. I love painting on three-dimensional surfaces, like boxes and stools and chairs, to find ways to play with the shape of the piece and let it help tell the story.
Two-dimensional art still stretches into the third dimension, through the use of layered resin to emulate water currents, or clay to build up the fin on a koi’s back. My most recent innovation is to take old, worn out stringed instruments, and reimagine them with clay and paint into entirely new creations—a violin becomes a heron, a guitar becomes a magical blackbird guarding its nest. What I hope is to show my vision of story and beauty in a way that grabs your attention and makes you smile.
