Summer in Provonce

In her pursuit of art, Arena tries to use brush and paints to reflect the quiet lights, subtle colors and playful shapes exhibited by seemingly mundane, everyday subjects. Striving for the emotional quality of every piece she creates, Arena hopes that her work would be able to reach out and connect with their viewers, evoking the sense of wonder and awe of our everyday life that are so often taken as granted. Her still life arrangements are set up in her north light studio and painted directly from life, so that her relationship to the subject is heightened in the moment in order to pass on that perception and experience to the viewer resulting in a painting that looks like a painting and not a photograph. Arena chooses objects and arrangements influenced by centuries of traditional still life painting from the Dutch Masters of the 1600s to French Academics of the 1900s, and strives to create paintings combining an old master feel with rich color and painterly brushstrokes.