“Painting is my passion. I work with pastels, oils and watercolors. I am a classically trained artist who loves the immediacy of the impressionist approach. I love the science of light and color and how our eyes and brain work to blend the colors in my paintings. I had an epiphany when I was visiting Paris years ago and saw Degas’ work at the Orsay Museum. Layers and layers of pastels blended together to give such life and depth to his figures! This is how I create with my pastels.”
Vicki Penney-Rohner has lived in Hawai`i for 26 years and studied art in Europe, the U.S. mainland and Hawai`i. Vicki’s work has won numerous awards in juried shows both locally and nationally over the last two decades. She has been published in “The Pastel Journal”, and invited to show at the prestigious Newington-Cropsy Gallery in New York, which is home to the largest collection of Hudson River Valley artists, and one of her landscapes was chosen for the permanent collection of the State of Hawai`i. Vicki teaches art in public schools through the Hawai`i State-sponsored grant program, “Artists in the Schools”, at the Volcano Art Center and her home studio in Kailua-Kona.
“I find inspiration in everything around me, wherever I go. I like to have five or six pieces in progress at once. To start, I block in the composition and establish the value range and shapes on each piece. Moving from one piece to another as they develop gives me a good perspective. With my oils and pastels I strive to speak to our emotions using light, composition, and a layering of color to not just render an image, but express the mood of my subject.”