Artist, teacher and independent curator, Alia El-Bermani was raised in a small town just south of Boston, where she spent most of her childhood enjoying the outdoors and discovering the natural history of the south shore of Massachusetts. She received her BFA in 2000 from Laguna College of Art and Design in Laguna Beach CA. This talented figurative painter has had several solo exhibitions as well as her work featured in numerous group exhibitions across the country.  Her paintings and drawings have been showcased in museums such as the Palm Springs Desert Museum in California, Customs House Museum in Tennessee, Anchorage Museum of History and Art in Alaska, West Valley Art Museum in Arizona, Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art in Toronto and the Greenville Museum of Art in North Carolina.  In 2015 her painting Paper Wishes was acquired by the Museu Europeu d’Art Modern (MEAM), in Barcelona, Spain for their permanent collection. Alia is a seasoned instructor who has taught at both the college and workshop level.  She has been an honored guest lecturer at several universities including East Carolina University, Meredith College, Laguna College of Art and Design and Texas A&M University.  Alia co-founded the important blog Women Painting Women that turned into a movement and several gallery and museum exhibitions since 2009.  Several articles have been written on her work in such periodicals as American Art Collector, iArtistas, ArtSee, Art Week, The Independent, LA Weekly and the Savvy Painter Podcast.  She currently works out of her studio in Raleigh, NC.