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As a long-time resident of New Mexico, Cheryl Yellowhawk has learned to absorb and
capture the sense of eternity of the southwest landscape in her work.
Interestingly, her use of bright pastel colors for the mesas, arroyos, and
mountain vistas has also been transferred into her more recent tropical
surroundings now that she lives in Florida. Whether the subject is
landscape or figures, her use of color is a signature of emotion that
effortlessly involves the viewer.
Cheryl was an Army brat, but lived in the Twin
Cities area in her teens, and spent most of her adult life in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
During her career as a cardiac rehabilitation nurse in Los Alamos she
decided to take classes in drawing and painting. Her teachers immediately noticed and nurtured
her natural talents. She graduated with
honors receiving both a B.A. and a B.F.A. in Studio Art from the University of New Mexico
and the Institute
of American Indian Art.
Having a broad interest in various mediums some of Cheryl's
prestigious mentors in Santa Fe
are Michael McGuire (oil and watercolor) and Doug Dawson (pastel) of Valdes Art
Workshops. Other mentors include Irene
Delka-McCray (figure drawing) of Santa Fe
Community College and Karita Coffey (ceramics) of the Institute of American
Indian Art.
She is versatile in all of these mediums, but finds pastels to be her
favorite form of expression. She has
been inspired and influenced by the physical geography and the spiritual
visibility of the Native American peoples in New Mexico. Her use of bright vivid color
and imagery depicts her excitement of line and form in capturing the
spirituality of Women and Landscape. Her
passionate style continues to evolve as she explores new techniques and the interaction of different
cultures.
Cheryl chooses not to work en plein air, preferring instead to work in her studio from brief
sketches, her own photographs and creative imagination. She uses a variety of pastels including
hand-made Terry Ludwig Pastels from Loveland, Colorado. She intuitively layers pastels on paper
watching how their colors play off of one another.
Besides being an active artist, she is currently a member of
the Pastel Society of Tampa Bay, a Docent for the GCMA and a member of The Fine
Arts Society for the Gulf Coast Museum of Art in Largo,
Florida.
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