Ann Marie Coolick hails from Arlington, VA. She’s an impasto painter who focuses on expressionist landscapes and geometric abstractions using only heavy body paint straight from the tube and palette knives. She puts so much layers of paint onto the canvas until some spills over the edges. This results in a three-dimensional sculptural appearance. From 2004 to 2009, Ann worked at the Arlington Arts Center as a Resident Artist and has since exhibited her art across the mid-Atlantic region including one-person shows at the Hylton Center, the Center for the Arts in Manassas, and the Glen Allen Arts Center. Ann’s art has also featured in L'Officiel Australia, Creative Digest UK, Home Goods, and Elan Magazine. She is a graduate of Virginia Tech and holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Studio Art and a Bachelor of Science degree in Marketing Management.
Ann studied with Kass Ray, who is today an internationally acclaimed artist. Ray introduced her to modern art and the way in which the processes of nature can be depicted as abstraction rather than pictorial representation. Her Italian-American grandmother always told her that her art career began when she was still a little girl doing chalk drawings on the sidewalk of her front steps. However, Ann knew that painting was it in her high school art class in Manassas, Virginia, her hometown. Her first oil painting had 3 underlying elements: geometry, texture, and color. These components are still the most prominent in her work even today. She likes to play with these elements to ensure that her compositions are well balanced.
