Our featured artist this month is Nicolette Leigh Yates. Nicolette works in a variety of mediums, including painting, drawing and sculpture. According to Nicolette:

"My image-making is influenced greatly by my experiences as a child, in the rural outskirts of the triad of North Carolina, exploring the wilderness and farm fields of my own backyard.  As a result, the figures portrayed in much of my art are colorful and illustrative.

I am driven to create art to express my compassion for humanity and my love and interest for the mysteries of life.  I find very saturated colors the most interesting.  I tend to see faces everywhere I look (in wood grain, shadows, clouds, when I close my eyes) this is evident in my tendency to illustrate abstracted faces and figures."

Visit her website to learn more about this fantastic artist.

Nicolette's work is currently on display at Atelier Gallery in downtown Asheville.

Also, stay tuned for Nicolette's new sculpture pieces, to be displayed on the second floor of Owen Hall at UNCA in the spring of 2010.