C.S. Lewis wrote "The longings which arise in us when we first fall in love, or first think of some foreign country, or first take up some subject that excites us, are longings which no marriage, no travel,, no learning, can really satisfy . . . There was something we grasped at, in that first moment of longing, which just fades away in the reality." My art is an attempt to capture those "first moments of longing" and suspend them visually through color, edges, and drawing. It is in those moments that we feel truly alive.
Lani’s creative side was inherited from her mother and other artists in her ancestral past including Carl Gustaf Nelson, whose work is in the Smithsonian Institute. It wasn’t until mid-life though that she was able to realize her passion to paint, taking classes at the Art Student’s League of Denver with Kim English for whom she quickly became the monitor for four years and then studying with Richard Schmid in Loveland for six years. These two mentors have been her major influences. Her love of animals and the outdoors has influenced her choice of subject matter but she also creates beautiful still lifes and figure paintings. “It’s the light that I paint” she says. “Paint is like liquid light from which I strive to create visual poetry”.
Her goal is to evoke an emotional response to a subject reflecting her belief that all things, living and non-living, are equally significant and essential to the whole.
Member of The Society of Animal Artists and Signature Member of the Rocky Mountain Plein Air Painters
Education:
Loveland Academy of Art - Richard Schmid Painting Group - 6 years
Art Student's League of Denver - Monitor for Kim English, 4 years
Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design - part-time, 4 semesters
Color: ado State University - Bachelor of Arts in English
Significant Shows
2016:
Coors Stockman's Club Art Show, Denver National Western Stock Show
January, 2016
2015:
Ranchlands Art Show,
November 19, 2016
1075 Park Ave. West, Denver, CO
Greeley Stampede Art Show and Sale
June 27, 2015,
Island Grove Arena, Greeley, CO
Rocky Mountain Plein Air Painters
August 2015
Stanley Hotel, Estes Park, CO
Notes from the Field
May 2015
PACE Center, Parker, CO
Previous Years Show Participation of Note:
Representing the West 2010-2013, Sangre de Cristo Art Centre, Pueblo, CO
Heart of the West 2009-2010, Ft. Worth TX
Castles and Clans Show, 2006, Loch Vale Gallery, Estes Park, CO
Oil Painters of America, 1997 Portrait Award, Taos, NM
Arts for the Parks, Top 100, 1993 - 1997, Judge's Award of Merit 1993
Award of Merit 2007, Best Body of Work 2004
Rocky Mountain Plein Air Painters 2002 - 2008, Signature Member
Pueblo, CO
Representing the West 2003 - 2007, Sangre de Cristo Arts Center
Greeley Stampede, 2000 - 2007, Greeley, CO
Coors Western Art Show, 1996 - 2000, Denver, CO
Governor's Show 1998 - 2008, Loveland Museum, Loveland, CO
American Art Invitational - December 1, 2007, Saks Gallery, Denver, CO
Society of Animal Artists 2010, San Diego, CA