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Natalie Levine
Born in New York City and raised in the Metropolitan New York area, Ms. Levine has enjoyed a successful 30-year career as a fine artist and earned many accolades for her work. The daughter of a French immigrant to the United States, she was introduced to the great works of French artists at an early age and continued a lifelong love of French art, food, antiques and wine, which led to the development of a unique artistic perspective. Her style has been described as both Impressionistic and Realistic, successfully combining the light and color of the Impressionists’ paintings while still maintaining the detail and reality of the late 19th century Realists.
Additional family influences included a Grandfather who was a successful Parisian dress designer who inspired Ms. Levine to attend the Traphagen School of Fashion Design and Illustration in New York City. There she was introduced to the paintings of William Robinson Leigh, painter of the American West, that were displayed on the walls throughout the school and moved by those paintings to further enhance her painting skills.
After putting her education to use and working as a fashion illustrator in New York City she moved to Florida where she taught watercolors and pastels at the Fine Arts Department of Broward Community College. In the 1980s, she attended Colorado State University and became one of the first women nationwide to work as a forensic facial Reconstructionist for the Broward County, Florida Sheriff’s Department. There she used her artistic abilities to help identify murder victims by recreating their facial features from the actual skulls. She also successfully aided the Sheriff's Department with witness description sketches.
Natalie owned and operated a successful art gallery in Pompano Beach, Florida, but her heart was in the art of painting more than administration, and to keep up with the demand for her own work she sold the gallery and ever since has devoted all of her time to the creation of her enchanting and lyrical works.
Experiencing Ms. Levine’s paintings means transporting yourself into another dimension of calm reflection, inner peace and tranquility. Her landscapes beckon you to become one with the beautiful settings and her use of color, movement, and texture inspire a spiritual journey to a more peaceful place and time as the venues come alive with an almost mystical quality.
“People tell me that my paintings transport them to a peaceful and lush hideaway, or sanctuary,” says Ms. Levine. “When this happens I have accomplished my goal as an artist – to share a vision of ‘my’ world through my paintings and bring pleasure and love to the viewer.”
Ms. Levine’s paintings are currently exhibited and sold in galleries both nationally and internationally and are a part of many collections throughout the world. They were also sold in art auctions of the Norwegian and Holland American Cruise Lines during cruises, and were often a part of the great ships' décor.
She has also been featured in editions of Art Trend Magazine and her work has graced the cover of Encore Magazine twice. In addition, in the Spring of 2010 she will be one of the artists included in the latest edition of Studio Visit Magazine.
She has recently transitioned to a new genre called “Botanicals,” which is an intuitive combination of painting and collage that brings together both real and imagined elements designed to engage the viewer on a journey of discovery, enchantment, and fantasy.
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