"In 1980, I left the cities of the East Coast for vast open spaces, prairies, and exotic cornfields of the Midwest. It was here that I found my passion as a landscape painter. Good art is honest art. I believe that the most honest work that an artist can produce is based on what inspires, grounds, and excites them the most. I have landed in Landscape; a genre that has continued to fascinate me for the past thirty years. I am inspired by the rhythm, form, and color of landscapes. I feel a strong connection to nature and the environment. I hope to translate this intensity and power into my paintings for you. My work draws the viewer into a heightened vision of gesture and hue, depicting nature with colors that are intense, lush, and dramatic. The work goes beyond traditional ideas of a green landscape. Teasing out the complex colors of nature, I create layers of contrast, line, and form. The paintings depict powerful moments from my travels through the everyday vistas of the Midwest and the world beyond." ABOUTNina Weiss is a nationally renowned artist who has been painting and drawing the landscape for over 40 years. She holds a BFA from the Tyler School of Art and graduate study at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Further study includes pre-college instruction at the Rhode Island School of Design and the Art Students’ League of New York. She taught a combined thirty-six years at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Columbia College Chicago. Nina currently teaches at the Evanston Art Center, the North Shore Art League, and the Chicago Botanic Gardens. Nina frequently teaches workshops throughout the Midwest and in her Evanston Art Endeavors Studio. She travels with students every summer to teach her European Landscape Painting & Drawing Workshops. Nina's work is held in private and corporate collections throughout the United States including United Airlines, Aetna Insurance, McDonald's, Eli Lilly, Avon, and United States Customs. Nina’s artist’s residencies include the Ragdale Foundation, Artist in Residence at Acadia National Park, and the Vermont Studio Center. Nina Weiss’s solo shows include the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, Mary Bell Gallery, Great River Road Museum of Contemporary Art, Union League Club, Union Street Gallery, and more. Television and radio appearances include WBBM News radio 780 “Made in Chicago”, HGTV’s Artist’s Loft Segment “Artist to Artist” with Enid Silverman, and “Inner Quest” from the Infinity Foundation. Her videos include an instructional Landscape Drawing DVD for Prismacolor Colored Pencils and Painting videos for Craftsy.com. Her paintings and drawings can be seen in two Hollywood films, John Hugh’s “Just Visiting” and Harold Ramis’s “Ice Harvest” and in the television series “Chicago Fire”.