Aruna Rao

Aruna Rao is originally from India and was born and raised there. She comes from a literary family and was exposed to Western literature and arts in her formative years. Much of what she read and saw made an impression on her, and even as a child, she had a natural flair for drawing and a proclivity for colorful images. Her introduction to Western art was through books on French impressionist paintings, and it was the works of artists such as Degas, Monet, and Van Gogh, which first sparked her love for painting. Though her formal training at that time was in Computers and her career took her in a different direction, she continued to cherish the arts and even dabbled in painting on occasion.

She immigrated to the US in ‘96 and worked in the Information Technology (IT) industry for almost 20 years. In 2013 while living and working in California, she began painting in oils in her spare time and soon found herself captivated by it. She decided to take her interest further and enrolled in the MFA program at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. At the academy, she received rigorous training, which helped hone her understanding and skills for drawing and painting. She applied herself to the program and graduated with top honors in 2018. Since graduation, she continues to strive to learn and grow as an artist. Her work has been accepted into prestigious juried shows such as the Oil Painters of America and ARC Salon show. She was recently featured in the Emerging Artists editorial of South West art magazine. She lives in Colorado Springs, Colorado, with her husband and her three adorable cats and paints full time out of her home studio.

* This statement has been provided directly by the artist in association to their 15^th International ARC Salon entries. This content has not been edited for typos or grammatical errors and has not been vetted for accuracy.