Growing up in the shadow of the Cascade Mountains and the lush rain forests of the Pacific Northwest Vicki Folkerts-Coots discovered a passion for the natural world. Surrounded by nature, it became her lifelong inspiration.  Childhood memories of rhythmic mysterious dark forests and moving skies has translated into her work as a vibrancy of swirling line and movement.  Gone are the brooding colors of her childhood landscape replaced by clearer brighter hues.  She is a landscape painter who works in both pastel and oil.  Aristotle said, “The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inner significance.”  The potency of the art she is creating is derived from a search for the “inner significance” of each form. Her sweeping brushstrokes express the expansiveness of her environment and ultimately its spirit.

 

     Vicki Folkerts-Coots was born in Portland, Oregon. Both her parents were artists. She studied at Oregon State University where she received a BFA in painting . After she married, she moved her small growing family to the Bay Area so she could go to graduate school. She received a MFA in painting from CCAC (now the California College of Art in Oakland). She studied with Jason Schoener, Mary Snowden, Jay DeFeo, Jack Mendenhall, and Richard Gayton.  After a career as an educator she moved to Sonoma County where she maintains a studio in Petaluma and is inspired daily by her rural home in Penngrove.