My work explores the contrasts of darkness & light, cool & warm color, smoothness & texture, calm & movement, realism & abstraction.   I am a third-generation artist— my mother was a portrait artist and sculptor and my grandmother was an impressionist landscape painter. While spending 5 years in Paris, I studied Art History and Studio Arts and was greatly influenced by the French Impressionists. I consider myself a contemporary Impressionist, but am often pushing the limits towards Expressionism and the Abstract.