BIO:
Eva Montealegre came of age on the historical showboat, THE RIVER QUEEN. Her father docked the gambler’s boat in St. Louis, Missouri and transformed it into a renowned restaurant and night club. There he served New Orleans cuisine and showcased some of the best blues and jazz north of the Delta. Eva grew up on this steamship in an environment rich with the dramas of socialites, politicians, artists and musicians balanced with a daily spiritual communion with nature. Her mother, a journalist for St. Louisan magazine, would take the family on meditative long walks in the woods during which her mother would indoctrinate the family on the mysterious art & science of hunting mushrooms. This close interaction with the foliage, earth and the magical gifts offered by the woods, the searching out and discovering of mushrooms created in Eva a relationship with nature that would nurture her throughout her life. Numerous childhood visits to the St. Louis planetarium illuminated Eva’s consciousness with an acute awareness of her relationship to the cosmos. Summers spent in New Orleans with her grandmother, evenings spent on The River Queen, interspersed with forays into nature and the ponderings of the outer reaches of the universe all came together creating a terrain within Eva that is often reflected in her work.
A spiritual connection with the inner and outer world of nature is always present as a through-line in Eva's artistic expression. Her love affair with painting emerged under the tutelage of abstract painter, Robert Kingston. From the moment she first applied paint to canvas something resonated deep in the core of her being and she knew she was destined to become what some people call a mad crazy painter. It was a match of spirit and the world - she sold that first painting even before it dried. Since then, her work has been acquired by art collectors in New York, Los Angeles, San Diego, Ventura, St. Louis and Santa Barbara. Her gallery debut was at Long Beach Arts gallery where her work, Lady Starskull Ponders the Cosmos, garnered acclaim and was awarded a prize. M.J. Higgins Gallery on the Downtown Los Angeles Art walk followed, and then the Topanga Art Safari, the historical Art Pavilion in Santa Barbara, the Canoga Youth Art Center, Orlando Gallery, Verve Gallery on La Brea, TAG Gallery in Santa Monica, Art Raw Gallery in West Chelsea, N.Y., the Modern Art Gallery on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles, Blue Bird Art House, the Orange County Center for Contemporary Art (OCCCA) and Xanadu Gallery in Scottsdale, Arizona. Recently she has become a resident artist at ADAGIO GALLERY on El Paseo, the Rodeo Drive of the desert. She participated in a cultural exchange, Master Class, under the auspices of the Hermitage Museum in West Hollywood on Sunset Blvd in 2011. Her work is featured in the Cal State Dominguez exhibit of "I HAVE A RIGHT!" in until the summer of 2012 and her paintings, DEEP ONE, and DEEP TWO, will be featured at THE LOFT in San Pedro early 2012.
Her studio, in Topanga, oversees a wild life conservancy, providing her with a view of the Santa Monica mountains and the Pacific ocean. Eva often goes for long walks and has encounters with the wildlife. She sometimes meditates for days at time before one of her painting streaks. Her Luminosity series was a focus of meditation for a year before she created the first painting.
“I am blessed in that I live my life nestled in the bosom of mother-nature and yet I have interaction with actors, dancers, writers and other creative people that are a part of my natural community. My intention as an artist is to create a dance of color and form that manifests in a dreamlike conveyance of everything from whimsy to drama. An iconic or an energetic flow, a spiritual is-ness and sometimes even an explosion is conveyed. This intense style of painting allows me to create a tran-substantial truth, an energetic veracity. My artistic influences include my painting instructor, Robert Kingston, but I have had other teachers not always in a formal school setting. I admire the work of Modigliani and Francis Bacon. I also like the work of Fritz Scholder and Theodoros Stamos. Sometimes when I am painting I am in a divine state and other times it is more akin to an apache tango dance.”
www.evamontealegre.com 310.455.3084 or you can email her at evamontealegre@yahoo.com
Collectors that have acquired Eva’s work:
Jill Strauss, Choreographer
Fred Sugerman, Choreographer,
Deborah Lindquist, Eco-Fashion Designer,
Peter Lee
Carol Ann Lasker
Brett Brown (2)
Cynthia Sellers (2)
Jeff Flannery
Tina Van Dyke-Woldman (2)
Melody Wallace
Chuck Anaya & Judith Austin
Chris Kemmerling
Nicole Specht (7)
Kirsten Olson (2)
Victoria Woo (3)
Danae Brockett
Carol Cole
Dori Siegenthaler (2)
Renee Lambert
Paula Rosenfeld
Richard Goff
Cynthia Hoyer (2)
Kat Ruiz
Todd Simon
Evelyne Anglade
Eric J. Goodman, Esquire
Chad Westphal
and many others…
