About the Artist
Zariah was born in Portland , Oregon, and has lived on Maui since 1996.
Her passion for vibrant color and magical-spiritual subject matter was evident from an early age. So was her immense creative talent. in the usual terminology of the art world, Zariah would be called “self-taught”, but she prefers to think of herself as inspired, and trained by numerous artists, teachers, schools and , of course, long practice.
“My earliest and happiest memories of childhood”, she says, “are times when I had a first full of colored pencils and some fresh white paper”. At age six, she won her first art contest by creating a colorful jester-clown for a Seattle newspaper. A few years later, in school, she won another contest with a book of her own poetry, illustrated with fanciful drawings. Still in school, she received honors for a book of magical fantasy stories and accompanying illustrations.
Whenever they were offered in school, Zariah took classes that allowed her to explore art and craft techniques, creative expression and, most particularly, color.
At the University of Oregon, she studied art traditions encompassing China, Japan, India, Greece and Europe. She also studied drawing, jewelry, metal smiting and ceramics.
Zariah continued her art studies at the University of Poitiers in France where she concentrated on French art and architecture, and undertook a special study in sculpture. Even now, in the midst of her growing success as a visual artist, she likes to take Life-drawing sessions often and to do nature studies. She is always exploring new techniques, particularly those that may improve her skills and options for using and controlling color.
The artist's early passion for magical fantasy continues to dominate her work. So, not surprisingly, she has found rich content and resonant subjects in the legendary and mythical histories of Hawaiian culture and the folklore of all Polynesia.
Works by Zariah were already in private collections around the world before she began to permit selected images to be reproduced as fine art prints, in partnership with Spirit of Polynesian Art.
Zariah is currently working on a group of new images in a series of related topics. The subject of these images-- intended specifically as both an original suit and the source of a series of limited editions prints-- is the artist’s own secret until they are completed. Still, the new works are sure to be vividly spiritual “magical-reality”, expressed with superb precision and brilliant color. |
