About the Artist: Sheila Keefe Ortiz was born and raised in Chelsea, Massachusetts, a small city next to Boston. She is an abstract artist whose focus is on drawing and painting from nature, figure, and still life. She met her husband Marcos in Cambridge, Massachusetts. They married and returned to his home in Venezuela, where they lived for three years. While bringing up her family, she and her husband had to relocate many times, and over the course of 20 years, they lived in Vermont, New Jersey, Idaho, North Carolina, and Upstate New York. During these years, Sheila acquired her Bachelors in Studio Art and Art History and her Masters in Education. After graduation Sheila worked full-time as an Art and Spanish teacher for the Alternative School for Math and Science in Corning, New York, and when not teaching, worked in her home studio. Recently, Sheila moved to Wilmington, North Carolina where she works full time in her studio. Her focus is on drawing and painting local flowers and landscapes, still life, and figure while developing universal themes around origins, artifacts, and memories."In my drawings and paintings, I overlap and repeat shapes, concentrate on the materiality of media and surface, simplify and express the essential lines of my subject, and strive to express the subject’s truth, beauty, and perfect form." Want to see more of Sheila Keefe Ortiz's work, and others? Visit our Instagram!