Laurie Hendricks

Laurie Hendricks is a California plein-air painter, with origins in San Francisco and the Bay Area.  Raised in Kensington California, a neighborhood with painters, potters, Berkeley professors and radicals, she first moved to Los Angeles in the 80s to pursue acting, and after some success in this field, turned her focus to painting full time.  With New England roots, she is a direct descendent of American painter John Trumbull (1756-1843), known best for The Signing of the Declaration of Independence and other depictions of the American Revolution, on display at the Capitol Building in Washington DC.  Hendricks is a modern-day champion of California Impressionism, and the early 20^th-century landscape painters.

According to Laurie: ”I’m a believer in the benefits of painting from life, whether from a live model, outdoors in the landscape or a still life, because it’s the best way to see true color and value in nature. I endeavor to paint in direct response to my subject, in a loose impressionist/expressionist way, taking the subject before me, filtering it through my feelings and emotions, to create something unique and original.  Nature is my muse, but my interpretation of natural beauty is expressed in my own voice. I love to paint alla prima, rarely waiting for areas to dry, I prefer the thick immediate application of paint and expressive brushwork.  My approach to Plein Air is to take my work to a degree of finish on location, rarely working on it later in the studio.”

An Artist Member of the California Art Club, and member of Laguna Plein Air Painters, American Impressionist Society, and Oil Painters of America, Ms. Hendricks is well known for her California landscapes and impressionist figurative works depicting her travels in Europe, throughout California and the US.  Laurie is also a painting instructor, and has taught painting workshops in Tuscany and other Italian regions, Provence, the Cotswolds, Croatia and Greece as well as in California : Cambria, Santa Inez and Pasadena.

Laurie has participated in many plein air juried and invitational shows including: Plein Air Easton, Carmel Art Festival, Telluride Plein Air, Alameda Plein Air, San Luis Obispo, Festival, Borrego Springs and Huntington Beach among others .

“A colorist both by instinct and training, she prefers a vivid chromatic palette, augmented by warm, unifying highlights. She deftly applies pigment in short, thick brush strokes, capturing the essence of a subject, rather than its myriad detail. Hendricks’ open compositions, breezy subjects, and loosely painted forms often contain islands of pure abstraction, emphasizing the fleeting qualities of water, weather and light.”– SPARC Gallery

Laurie Hendricks earned a Master of Fine Arts Degree at the San Francisco Art Institute where she learned to blend technique and emotion to create her paintings.  She continues to study painting, drawing and art history, viewing art as a life-long learning process.  Her paintings, ranging from landscapes and figurative paintings to still life and portraiture, are collected nationally and abroad.  From 2012 to 2018, Hendricks operated her own gallery in South Pasadena, showing her plein air and studio work, alongside the work of other contemporary artists.  Her paintings have been exhibited in the California Art Club Gold Medal Shows for the past three years.