Painting Joy: Featured Artist Jackie Afram

"I have enjoyed creating paintings with oils for over 40 years.  I often use photos I have taken or family and friends give me to create my painting. Sometimes I use one photo and other times several for a painting. I don’t have a particular style but try to use what I think goes best with the subject. I love the variety one can get with different mediums or using palette knife or various types of brushes."  So says Jackie Afram, who was Gallery Underground's featured artist this month. Hanging in the gallery were lovely portraits she did of family.

"A Father's Joy" oil by Jackie Afram

"The primary focus of my June Featured Artist paintings is our granddaughter Rose Joy.  She is true to her name and once she developed her curls she was an irresistible subject.  I worked from photos I took of her and our daughter took of Rose and her father.  You can see from whom she inherited her hair color.  The curls come from her mom.  I didn’t place the pens in her hands. She fell in love with them well before her 22 months." 

"Not Far From the Apple Tree, Left Hand" oil by Jackie Afram

"I have done several commissions for friends and family," says Jackie. "I like to personalize my paintings by hiding wedding dates and bride and groom initials in wedding gifts or putting small symbols for a particular person in a larger painting.  I enjoy doing portraits of children and landscapes.  I also enjoy the challenge of ala prima still lifes.  Recently I have been working with layers of glazes which bring depth and richness to my paintings. I have also experimented with wax as a medium to bring a soft color and oil bars which bridge drawing and painting."

"Iris Panoply" oil by Jackie Afram

Jackie was raised in Southern California on a terraced avocado grove that was a perfect playground.  In fourth grade she received her first commission as an artist.  Using the principles she learned watching Walt Disney’s Magic Kingdom, Jackie copied an Easter bunny pin-up her teacher had bought. The teacher then asked her to make two four-feet high bunnies for future use. Jackie agreed. 

Jackie was able to take an art class elective all four years in high school but only squeezed in a semester at the University of California, Riverside. She graduated from UCR in 1965 and got on a plane for Washington, DC. Jackie’s career took her to Cyprus, where she met her husband, to Panama where they took their daughter and their son was born, and to England. Jackie has just recently fully settled into retirement and now even has her own home studio.

The joy she takes in her painting, and in her subjects, is evident in all her work!

--Sandi Parker, Gallery Underground Co-Director