Jane Wallis grew up roaming the creeks and hills of the Missouri Ozarks. After exploring much of the country, Jane, her husband and two children chose the Northwest as their home where they have lived for more than 40 years. This area and the many places she has traveled in the US and abroad are the fodder of her painting. An emotive relationship with the landscape is explored through painting; reflecting a sense of place and atmosphere; subtleties of patterns, warmth of sunlight or the cool mysteries of shade. Figures representing that relationship are often found either dominating or small suggestions in her work. Revisiting a site can be engaging to her as a painter but encountering new places, new views, new people and a different air are the most inspiring and exciting for her. “Painting plein-air is an important phase in my painting. I like to imagine that I am confronting this visual world like it was a symphony arranged by the light. The eye, like an intuitive ear, is tuned to this world. You listen with an all absorbing emotion, allowing harmony and rhythm to permeate the senses. Using instruments of watercolor, pastel, or oil, I play out the musical score with color, contrast and gesture.” Wallis is a Master Pastelist of the Pastel Society of America, a Distinguished Pastelist of the Northwest Pastel Society and the West Coast Pastel Society, a Signature member of the Northwest Watercolor Society and an exhibiting member of Oil Painters of America.