Artist’s Biography
Growing up in Kansas City and painting from an early age, Anitalouise studied art throughout high
school and college. She received her BA in Art at the University of Missouri and continued post
graduate work painting on a scholarship at the Kansas City Art Institute and earned her teaching
certificate.
After teaching art in public schools in Kansas, California and Texas for fifteen years she opened
her own studio gallery in Tyler Texas and worked full time with her own painting. Anitalouise pursued
painting in water media taking time to teach adults and sell her paintings.
Ms. West moved to Santa Fe in 1993 to follow her bliss and enlarge her art territory in the Southwest.
After working in water media for fourteen years, she has returned in earnest to her first love, oils.
Concurrently, Anitalouise is also expanding into the medium of pastel which offers the best of
drawing and painting.
Having won first place at the Mill Ave Exhibition in Tempe, Arizona and numerous other awards,
Anitalouise co-authored a book “Painting the Pastel Landscape.” She has been invited to show her
work at the Panhandle Plains Museum, Canyon, Texas and the “Collectors Classic Show” at Mockingbird
Gallery, Bend, Oregon. She also participates in the Oil Painters of America shows and has been a
featured artist at the Pasadena California Art Material Expo.
For Ms. West the main artistic influences have been Gustave Courbet whose darks are wonderfully
mysterious and Cezanne whose broken color and high key scale bring excitement. Many contemporary
artists have been important to Ms. West including Matt Smith, Scott Christensen and Daniel Greene.
Anitalouise loves to paint in plein air and does so regularly. Traveling to many group events in
California, Colorado and Arizona brings variety to her on-location pieces. She also works in the
studio painting still life and portrait.
Her works are impressionistic landscapes combined with floral still life which highlight her strong
sense of color and textural qualities. The joyful expression of her love of life and art through her
profession manifests in all she does. For her, composing art is truly from the heart and clarity of
vision that she strives for.