(828) 526-0173 | [email protected] | Copyright 2024 – All Rights Reserved.
The Intricacies of the Heart | Annell Metsker
Written By: Donna Rhodes | Issue: 2021/09 – September
For Annell Metsker’s evocative portraits, the life of the heart is always the heart of the matter.
For artist Annell Metsker, long known for her mastery of photography, the transition to oil painting is part of a lifelong quest to capture the intricacies of the heart.
She still takes photographs and uses them as reference, but today she considers herself first-and-foremost an oil painter.
Annell’s happiest portraying a human or pet, capturing bold color, shape, form, and texture at peak light.
She paints a dramatic story, establishing the subject’s true character with daubs, layers, and textural smears of impasto in photo-realism, impressionism, or abstraction.
While many of her portraits, particularly those of pets, are often an homage to a cherished four-legger now waiting at the Rainbow Bridge, one of her most poignant works of art is that of a child.
Annell shares the experience, “I painted a first-time mom (at age 42) and her newborn. Every six months I created photo-realism paintings of her daughter. By age two-and-a-half the mom was satisfied with my process and allowed more creative freedom for what I call my Angel Portrait. As I studied the daughter’s face I kept thinking, ‘This child is truly an angel.’
“Months after unveiling the Angel Painting, I received a call from her grandmother. She said her daughter and baby were casualties in an auto accident. She said the paintings were a great comfort, for they captured her loved ones’ spirits. She felt their presence. I still get gooseflesh thinking of the foreshadowing of that sweet Angel.”
It’s the heart she paints into her art that makes it so captivating.
Annell’s art can be viewed at Whiteside Gallery in Cashiers. She can be contacted through her website, annell.com, or email her at [email protected], or call (704) 996-0559. She’ll discuss your commission goals, background settings, wardrobe choices, and all the factors built into her art. Email several photos to get started, or set up a shoot at her Covid-free studio.
