This month we’re featuring Anne Stine for the Capitol Hill Art League’s Mind of the Artist feature. Read her story and check out her artwork below. You can view more of her artwork here:

I am a painter living in Purcellville, Virginia, who works in encaustic mixed media, creating series of impressionistic and abstract landscapes inspired by my deep passion for the essence of nature – its geometry, patterns, colors and textures and its life-changing powers. 

Ever since childhood, nature has been my sanctuary where I catch my breath and meditate on the spiritual bond I experience when I’m totally immersed in its beauty. It is this deep personal connection and the childlike wonder of our natural world that I wish to share with others to motivate them to cherish and preserve the environment that I hold so dear to my heart. I want to bring attention to our codependent relationship we share with nature, how it can heal the soul and bring a sense of solace in our otherwise chaotic society. 

I consider my work to be constantly evolving. I first started painting in acrylic mixed media. But once I discovered encaustic with its luminescence, vivid color, and dramatic textural qualities, I was hooked. The unpredictability of this medium really excites me, and I decided to fully concentrate on mastering it in my landscape work. To further challenge myself, I decided to use encaustic rather than a traditional medium such as oils or acrylics to create contemporary representational landscapes. This inspired me to go back to the basics and study traditional landscape oil painting and the use of color and value in portraying atmosphere as seen in the Impressionist’s work. I’m attracted to how with Impressionism, it was more about the artist’s perception of the subject matter rather than the subject matter itself. The beauty of storytelling was in the subjective.

In 2021, I took a full year to study plein air painting, which was popular with Impressionist painters. This further developed my eye for color in the real world, which I then brought back to the studio to express in encaustic wax on wood panel. Moving forward, I feel the need to take what I’ve learned in realism painting and push my artistic vision further into abstraction. Landscapes will continue to be my subject of choice, but it is exciting to me to now add my own vision and emotive quality to my work to create a desired feeling.

You can find me on social media at https://www.instagram.com/annestinefinearthttps://www.facebook.com/annestinestudio, and https://www.youtube.com/annestinefineart You can sign up for my monthly newsletter at http://eepurl.com/hbZaaTto stay informed about class schedules, new art and special events.