Pratima Rao

Pratima Rao is a local artist from Holmdel, New Jersey. A longtime Monmouth County resident, she loves to paint local jersey landscapes “en plein air” or “in the open air”. Pratima enjoys painting landscapes in oil on location, exploring the effects of light in particular while dealing with the challenges painting outdoors brings.

She feels that Plein air paintings have a vitality of their own because they capture the feeling of the scene quickly, with the atmosphere  conveyed through color notes that would otherwise be impossible to capture. She also does studio paintings in oil from photographs taken by her and accepts commissions.

Pratima is an engineer by profession and worked with AT&T in Holmdel and Middletown, NJ for the last 20 years while also raising two children – despite a hectic schedule, she pursued her passion of painting and took classes and workshops whenever she could. She recently decided to leave AT&T to paint full time and couldn’t be happier with her decision!

She has been showing her work as an associate member at the Guild of Creative Art in Shrewsbury since 2000 and as an exhibiting member from 2007. She is also a member of the Pleinair Painters of the Jersey Coast (PAPJC) and an associate member of the Oil Painters of America (OPA).

Her art training over the years includes various classes with local teachers. She has also taken studio and plein air workshops with internationally known American artists such as Don Goetz, Judy Wagner, Tony Van Hasselt, Staats Fasoldt, Tom Hughes, Frank Federico and Ken Backhaus.

Contact email: pratimarao05@yahoo.com

You may visit his website at http://pratimajrao.googlepages.com/home