Andrea Brunais

About Andrea Brunais

Enchanted by the wisdom and order inherent in even the most chaotic of landscapes, I love the natural world’s beauty and its kaleidoscope of colors, knowing I can only hope to weakly emulate the astonishments of creation. Can the artist hint at their mysteries, evoke some feeling of resonance, perhaps akin to what one feels at the welling up of a concerto, the hint of a summer breeze, the glint of sunlight on flower petals, the industry of bees? Patterns abound, from Fibonacci to fractals and lighting that takes us somewhere beyond the painting, to ideal worlds, to places where the heart alternately leaps and rests. A resident of the Mountain State, I live in Bluefield and spend as much time as possible meditating on West Virginia’s rivers, waterfalls, mountains, bluffs and wild skies.

Biography

I am a lifelong author, poet and photographer — and now a painter. I worked in journalism and higher ed communications before embarking on an “encore career” as a pastelist. I’m drawn to soft pastels because their pure pigments create delightful explosions of fresh, saturated color. My college degree is in mass communications, and I’ve studied online with pastel artists Alain Picard (Painterly Landscape Course) and Marla Baggetta (Trees in Pastel Workshop) as well as Susan Jenkins of Monet Cafe. I’ve won silver and bronze for paintings in Camelback’s international online competitions in 2022, and I won Best of Show for the painting “Where the Waterfall Ends” in the 2023 exhibition of the Appalachian Artists Association.