Painter Gerri Green brings the energy of the outdoors onto the canvas and into homes
“I think my artwork is very positive. It’s alive and happy,” says Simpsonville-based artist Gerri Green, gesturing to the dynamic swirls of color, contrast, and forward movement that define her signature style of representational painting. “I love landscapes because I think the world is just so beautiful—it’s always changing, always new and interesting.”
Originally from Norway, Green spent her school years in Toronto, where she was first influenced by Canada’s early 20th-century post-impressionism movement known for vibrant depictions of the Canadian wilderness. While crisscrossing the country to perform as a singer, Green would paint and draw what she saw as she traveled, eventually falling in love with the Carolina foothills after landing in the US for a career change.
“Whether I’m painting a cityscape, the mountains or the beach, I want to connect people with the natural places they love,” shares Green. “These are the things we yearn for when we sit in our offices. We want to see beautiful sights like cliffs and waves. We don’t want to live in cubicles, do we?”
The landscape of Gerri Green
Curiosity fuels Green’s prolific art practice. She spends an hour every morning studying her Canadian contemporaries, and when diving into a new scene of Lake Jocassee or Grandfather Mountain, she digs into the history of the landscape. “I’m very interested in learning about the topography of what I’m painting,” Green reveals. “By understanding how it was created, it helps me direct my brush strokes to reflect that. How were these mountains formed? With the Rockies, it was a great force pushing upwards—whereas our Blue Ridge mountains were created by the ice receding, so everything looks like it was scraped.”
Green finds great joy in seeing her work bring bold color and energy to collectors’ homes—but she doesn’t try to direct the selection process too much. “I never tell [my collectors] to choose one painting over another based on the color of a room. The painting doesn’t have to match the couch . . . I want you to fall in love with the piece first. You can always change your furniture,” the artist says with a laugh.
A Love of Color
Green is obsessed with all of nature’s hues, and her work reflects this self-described “chromatophilia.” “A lot of these paint colors in little tubes come from the earth and have been with us for thousands of years . . . I feel like I’m putting them back into the earth when I’m painting scenery.”
See Green’s work at The White Rabbit Fine Art Gallery in Travelers Rest or online at gerrigreenpaints.com.
