This biography from the Archives of AskART:
| Fascinated by patterns of light and dark and abstract shapes, Elizabeth
Locke, in a style that combines realism, tonalism and impressionism,
paints landscapes, figures, animal and still-lifes subjects. A
resident of Texas, she prefers to paint en plein air so that she is
responding to something real time.
Locke is also an art educator, having operated an art school in Austin
for several decades. In 2000, she and her students went to
Giverny, France, the home property of French Impressionist Claude
Monet. By day they painted the French countryside and then
painted his gardens in the late afternoon and evening and with special
privileges, were allowed to paint after dark. She said that
because she was allowed to paint the way she wanted, it was a totally
freeing experience, and led to her being much more aggressive about her
own painting career. To that point, she thought that "teaching
was her calling", something she still loves, but the trip to France
opened new doors of creativity for her.
Elizabeth Locke was born into a family of artists from both maternal
and paternal relatives. Her English maternal grandmother was a
medical illustrator and also did portrait miniatures on ivory.
Locke's mother emigrated to America and, after divorcing Locke's
father, did fashion illustration for The Los Angeles Times. Locke's
father was an illustrator agent in New York City. His father was
a succesful landscape etcher in Vermont and Florida, and his mother was
a folk-art painter, who lived into her 90s.
Locke's talent was obvious from childhood, and she studied at the
Chouinard School of Art in Los Angeles where her mother was
teaching. She also studied at art schools in England and then at
the Art Students League in New York City. Instead of pursuing her
art immediately as a profession, she became involved in meditation and
spent eight years traveling the world as a meditation teacher.
She married and had a son and moved to Austin, and then returned to art
after the marriage ended. She supported herself with her art
teaching, opening her school named Austin Fine Art Classes. A big
inspiration to her is the book, Hawthorne on Painting, by
Charles Hawthorne, who taught for many years in Provincetown,
Massachusetts. She has also taken workshops from Kim English,
Quang Ho and Michael Lynch.
Source:
Virginia Campbell, "Finding Focus", Southwest Art, April 2006, p. 99
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