Chella Gonsalves

An Indiana Hoosier is an accomplished artist in various media and styles including non-representational and abstraction, but she prefers 'en plein aire' small oil paintings, working with light and shadow. She has illustrated a cookbook, a poetry book and is periodically an illustrator for an international professional essay journal. With two well-known local authors, she illustrated story books for Modesto's historical McHenry Mansion.

As an associate member of Oil Painters of America, Chella has studied with national known artists, like I.Rice Pereira, Margo Hoff as well as California artist Brian Blood, Bob Gerbracht, Stan Goldstein, E. John Robinson, Gerald Brommer, Dan Petersen, Peggy Knoll Roberts, and Gil Dillinger. In 2002, she was one of the selected artists to participate in the National Parks program, Artists-in-Residence, Yosmemite National Park.

Her artist's statement: 'As I search for painitng subjects, I see the evidence of urban growth desproying the gift of nature and rural scene in the Great Central Valley of California. I believe that my deep concern for capturing the treasures of the past is revealed in the small 'plein aire' studies, which are created outdoors 'in open-air....influenced by the sounds,sights and smells of nature. I strive to record these sensations with spontaneous brush strokes, while working with the plasticity of oil paint, relishing its thickness and slow drying qualities. Expressing on canvas, the light and shadows of landscapes, is a challenge I love, in the medium I love.'

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