{biography}
ﾠ Janina Elizabeth Tukarski Ellis was born in Seattle, WA, in 1981.ﾠ While still an infant, her family moved to Munich, Germany, where they resided for the next 14 years. She grew up attending both American and German schools while traveling extensively throughout Europe with her parents and three sisters. Ellis is in the third generation of a family of artists.ﾠ Her grandmother was an oil painter, and her mother, Jane Tukarski, is currently one of the top U.S. scrimshanders (maritime engraver).ﾠ Ellis owes a great deal of her love for art to her mother who exposed her to the work of the Masters at an early age. After college, Ellis moved back to her home-city, Munich, to study painting on her own under the mentorship of her mother.ﾠ She spent two and a half years painting Munich while selling her work at the Schwabinger Kuestlermarkt (Munichs premiere art district).ﾠ In 2004, Ellis met her soul-mate, Joseph Ellis, in Munich and moved back to the U.S. to get married. In 2009, Ellis took a pause from active painting, and returned to Germany to study classical painting and drawing at Akthof, a private art school in Munich. After an intensive year of studying anatomy and the human figure, Ellis returned to the U.S. and began focusing on figurative work.ﾠ “I paint with the knowledge that everything is intriguing. Everyone is the hero of a story. Every moment is the climax scene in its own novel. My personal challenge is not to seek out remarkable inspiration, but rather to seize a seemingly mundane, everyday moment and illuminate it in a manner that reveals its beauty and poignancy.” -Janina Tukarski Ellis
Ellis’s style has been aptly described as “peaceful, yet still subtly invigorating.” She has combined the masterful lighting techniques found in realism with the bold painting-knife strokes of impressionism to create her own unique style. Although her subject matter ranges from simple still life to poignant figurative, the viewer can see her signature textures and vivid colors permeating throughout her work.
“My sole reason for painting is to capture those meaningful, yet fleeting moments illuminated by a ray of unexpected sunlight, transforming that mundane moment into a thing of beauty. I, therefore, draw on my surroundings for inspiration. When I find myself admiring an object, landscape, or even a simple patch of color illuminated by direct sunlight, my first instinct is to stretch a fresh canvas and lose myself in my art.” –Janina Tukarski Ellis
Click here to download her Resume
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