About
Raelene Shea is a Canadian painter who, since retiring from a career as a health services management professional and later hotelier, is finally able to dedicate her time as a full time painter. She works in both oil and pastel, painting both en plein air and in her studio. As Raelene splits her time between Canada and Sri Lanka, her paintings depict two completely different environments and a variety of subjects.
Raelene has been working in oil and pastel for the past 30 years, mostly in her leisure time, while she was involved in a career in healthcare management in British Columbia Canada. Since retiring from work in 2007, Raelene has been able to dedicate more time to travel and painting as shown in her most recent works focused on south Asian scenes.
Although, never formally trained, Raelene has participated in many Canadian and International workshops, is an avid reader, and experimenter. The intensity of color she achieves with both oil and pastel translate into a view of our world as both intense and challenging.
She is most inspired by nature, and began as a landscape watercolor artist. As she wanted more immediate intensity of color, Raelene quickly switched to oil, and about 10 years ago became inspired with pastels after attending an International Pastel Artists Conference in Albequerque, New Mexico.
British Columbia provided ample landscape and garden painting opportunities and those works were the fosuc of Raelene's first solo exhibition in 2008 at Cunliffe House, in Kamloops British Columbia.
In more recent years, Raelene has become more interested in figures depicting poignant times or cultural activities, seen in her travels in south Asia.
“I don't paint every day, rather when the subject tells me it is time to get it on the canvass. As an artist, I can only paint a scene or a figure which somehow speaks to my heart or my psyche. I have to get a feeling from the person or the scene. Most of my work is created from collages of photos which I have taken myself of something which has moved me.”
She describes her painting process as establishing the feeling or story the subject must convey, laying in the big shapes, establishing the value scheme throughout the painting, then glazing many layers to get the depth of color, shadow, and highlights. she generally works light to dark and finishes off with detail, shadows, and highlights.
In British Columbia, Raelene often begins paintings en plein air, then finishes in her small home studio. In Sri Lanka, Raelene’studio is an outdoor patio attached to her home. The lush surroundings and gentle sea breezes provide the perfect milieu for her creativity.
Although Raelene does not produce prints, she will do commissioned renditions of her original works from her own private collection, upon request. Commissions of other work also accepted, as well as exhibitions, special projects, individual or group instruction.
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