Full SLOPOKE Art Book for 2023

AMY RATTNER
Amy grew up near Salinas, California drawing and painting with her sister, who is also a gifted artist.
She now lives in Woodside, California with her husband, two sons and three dogs. Earning both
BA and MA degrees in English from Stanford University, she began her career as a graphic designer,
working for Stanford and then for her own company, Kindred-Storey Designs. Circa 2008, she began
taking art classes at the Pacific Art League and discovered her artistic voice at an intensive water
media seminar with Skip Lawrence, Katherine Chang Liu, Fran Larsen, and Christopher Schink.
Painting is a portal into her imagination and serves her as meditation to center her thoughts and
feelings. From the beginning, depicting animals has been her passion and it begins with a deep admiration
for the unique beauty and character of each creature. She uses color, value, and line to
capture the spirit, personality, and cultural significance of her subjects so that all can experience her
passion. Therefore, her style has evolved to be a combination of realism, whimsy, and graphic art
with a strong emphasis on color, line,
and symbolic patterns. She is most
influenced by the work of John Nieto
whose use of bold colors, expressive
lines, and incredible sense of design,
with interplay of positive and negative
space Amy finds enchanting.
However, Amy has created her own
style in animal art that is at once
sophisticated and contemporary. Amy
is a veteran SLOPOKE artist whose
work is found in private collections
worldwide, including those in
Woodside, Carmel, Santa Fe, Boston,
France, and Norway
Gossip Girls, 18x24, Acrylic on paper on wood panel
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