Ruth Valerio

About the Artist:

Ruth Valerio's descriptive landscapes reflect not only many years of observing and painting in the fabled northern New Mexico light, but growing up in the softer-focus diffused light of England. She credits her poet father and artist mother with encouraging her to view and interpret the world around her in poetic and artistic terms. The legacy of such an appreciative and creative point of view gave an early impetus to her artistic career. Wherever she traveled, whatever she experienced, she saw the world as a parade of possible paintings. With four years of formal training at the University of Alaska, she continued to study with many prominent artists, finally settling in Santa Fe to paint in a stimulating, inspiring and endlessly beautiful environment.

Working in oils, she does small field sketches and takes photographs and interprets them in the studio as larger paintings. Her subjects include landscapes, still life, market scenes and animals. She has been represented in invitational and solo shows.

“Happy are the painters, for they shall not be lonely. Light and colour, peace and hope, will keep them company to the end, or almost to the end of the day.” – Winston Churchill

Biography:

Ruth Valerio Bio

Ruth Valerio knows a lot about light and how it colors our emotions. Born in 1938 in Oxfordshire, England, where she lived until age twenty-one, Valerio grew up with moody colors made brilliant when the sun came out. Her poet father and pianist mother introduced her to Winston Churchill’s book Painting as a Pastime, from which she found her motto: “Happy are painters, for they shall not be lonely. Light and colour, peace and hope, will keep them company to the end, or almost to the end of the day.”

Married to a major in the US Air Force, Valerio raised two children while living throughout the United States, including four years in Fairbanks where she studied the gamut of fine art at the University of Alaska, including life drawing, painting, sculpture, and ceramics. Oil paints became her passion and her profession when she moved to Colorado, then Santa Fe in 1991. Says Ruth, "Everywhere you look in Santa Fe there’s something to paint! I also find endless subjects in my English-style garden with hollyhocks, roses, Shasta daisies, delphiniums, poppies, daffodils and more. But it is the light in New Mexico and the way it energizes color that I strive to capture in my paintings."

Valerio says that, "the spontaneity and movement of Degas’ figures are an inspiration". But she also admires the bravura brushwork of Fechin, Sorolla and Sargent. "I studied plein air painting with Irby Brown, composition and design with Ted Goerschner and John Poon, and the interpretive qualities of edges with Carolyn Anderson and Laura Robb. Painting plein air has left a mark on my work and helped me retain a feeling of spontaneity even in the studio. I prefer a loose painterly surface that suggests alla prima even though my studio method is unhurried."

Always evolving: "My work has evolved over the years, including about a decade when I painted in acrylics. Landscapes remain my favorite subject matter, but I intersperse them with still lifes, figurals (both human and animal) and an occasional portrait. Like many artists, I believe my next painting will be the best."

Lasting impressions: "Although I’m directly inspired by the reality of life, I want to communicate a more universal emotion that reminds people of somewhere they’ve been or something that left a lasting impression. Many times it’s the indefinable interactions of color and light that remain unforgettable and forever alive."