Gallery North

Elizabeth Greaf

BIOGRAPHY

Elizabeth Greaf has been drawn in any endeavor to visual observation and interpretation. Life’s activities have always led her to visual arts and she has painted, designed, or built in response to events, experiences, and personal needs. One illustration of is her earlier work in managing the designs of architects and engineers in planning many major medical facility projects.

Her study of art has been conducted in several art schools including the Art Students League of NY, Corcoran Art School, Washington, DC, the Academy of Art in San Francisco, the DeYoung Museum School in San Francisco, Mendocino Art School, and the College of Marin. She began this journey with classes in oil painting at age 7.

Since 1988 she has devoted her time and efforts to art. Her lengthy study and involvement in art turned professional when she was accepted into an outstanding gallery in Napa Valley, California shortly after she left her former career to devote herself to art. Her studio is now located in a beautiful setting on Long Island, overlooking the pond, historic gristmill, and tidal Stony Brook Creek. Nature surrounds and inspires her work environment.
She enjoys, not only painting, but also helping others develop their artistic abilities by teaching drawing and watercolor painting and guiding the emergence of students’ abilities to see as an artist sees. In addition to her studio and independent traveling workshops in such locations as Paris, Nantucket, Maine, and Block Island, her local teaching includes classes for Gallery North, the East End Arts Council and the Babylon Arts Council.

Elizabeth was born in the Midwest but has developed her artist’s eye through life in nine states including long term residence in San Francisco, Washington, DC., Boston, and for the over 17 years, in Stony Brook, NY.

For over 9 years she has also devoted a substantial amount of her time to Gallery North working as a member / officer of the Board of Trustees and later in the role of the first Chairman of the Gallery’s Artists’ Advisory Board.

Artist Statement

The paintings that I create are intended to capture a moment spent in a place that I was reluctant to leave. We so often find ourselves lingering over a site that we are drawn to because of its beauty, drama, meaning, or mood. My paintings try to find the essence of the attraction to the scene and capture it in a painterly manner that enables the viewer to visit that scene and linger.

Although representational, I do not intend the work to be photographic. I look for the mood of the setting and try to use the art materials to expand it visually to a higher level of opportunity for the viewer to insert his or herself into the essence of the setting.

Much of my artwork is done in watercolor but I do work in other media, particularly oil. The settings are frequently of North Eastern or Western USA and Virginia but many are of locations that I’ve visited in Europe. In my work I seek to find the essence that draws me to a scene, and bring that into the painting for the observer to linger in as they spend time with the artwork.