ARTIST

Sarena Rosenfeld grew up in upstate New York, near the town of Woodstock. The daughter of two artists, Sarena was early influenced by the surrounding art. She began painting at the age of thirty, while living in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Sarena traveled extensively in the ensuing years. She has lived and worked in locales as diverse as Hawaii, New Orleans, and South Africa, and settled in California ten years ago. Her fauvist work reflects observations taken from those varied life experiences.
 
Sarena is primarily self-taught. She paints instinctively, playing with and drawing out, both her own and her audience's emotions. Her head studies and bronze sculptures convey an immense range of feeling: passion, reflection, understanding and endurance. Likewise, the brilliant hues in the landscapes and the street scenes, create vivid impressions which penetrate beyond the viewers' eyes, into the mind.

Sarena began formal art studies after living in California for several years. Her initial classes at the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles from 1983-1985 concentrated on the basics of art theory - color, design, composition and drawing, mainly in the figurative form. Concurrent studies from 1984-1985, at the Idyllwild School of Music and the Arts, further refined the precepts learned at Otis. Sarena's youthful exposure to art, combined with her professional experience before embarking on a structured program, allowed her to choose her own form and expression. These lessons formed a classical basis from which she departs in her own legitimate and authoritative distortions. They free her to experiment with color and move in her personal direction.

The artist initially exhibited in Honolulu, Hawaii, and New Orleans, Louisiana, in the early to mid-1970s. While residing in South Africa, she participated in several shows in Johannesburg. After returning to the United States, Sarena began displaying her work in more exhibitions, receiving awards in many. She was bestowed with top honors at various regional showings from 1984-1986, including: "Best of Show," Glendale Regional Arts Council; "Sweepstakes Award," First Prize in Oils, Santa Monica Arts Festival; and the "Tapestry in Talent Invitational," San Jose. Sarena has gradually expanded the scope of her displays further toward the East Coast.

Sarena takes a joyous, uninhibited, and fully immersed approach to art. She believes her oils are best "appreciated as they are lived with and allowed to penetrate the emotions". Her own fulfillment comes from the power of creation, and the expression of feelings and images. As Sarena has remarked, "I want paintings that will physically assault, a punch to the solar plexis, so you can shout, I know this!!! ...a wave of feeling."