Meet the Artist

Raised in California, in a household filled with art, music and a love of the outdoors, Erin now makes her home in Oregon, with her husband, daughter and extended family. Although she was an artistically gifted child, she earned a decidedly left-brained degree in bioengineering from the University of California – Berkeley. But the pull of painting and her passion for nature was strong, and Erin soon became a fulltime artist and arts entrepreneur.

Her hallmark style includes a bold use of texture as well as a brilliant palette of color, hues placed side by side on the canvas to create a luminescent stained-glass effect she calls Open Impressionism. A prolific and disciplined painter, Erin typically photographs landscapes for inspiration and then paints in her studio. About “Maple Lights,” she says, “This is the view I see every night when I come home, and I really wanted to capture that transient light effect, which in the Pacific Northwest lasts maybe twenty minutes. That magical glow…those natural colors…how do I render that? That’s what I try to do in my work.”

The music you hear at the beginning of the video above, from a sonata by Telemann, is performed by Mark and Nancy Hanson, Erin’s parents. Talent clearly runs in the family.

See more of Erin’s work at www.erinhanson.com.