About the Artist

Jeremy Shires

Born in South Africa, I spent my childhood raised with a great enthusiasm for the outdoors. I began painting and sketching on location at a very young age. Upon immigration to the U.S., at the age of 10, my family continued in transition every few years, each time to an entirely different region. As I developed further skills as a young artist, I also embraced a regional essence in describing the places I was able to explore. Dialect, manner, weather, topography, architecture, history, and in particular - light, became components that informed my vocabulary as an artist. Eventually, a deliberate sense of 'place' became rooted in what has evolved into my 'voice' as an artist.

I earned a BFA at California State University Long Beach, 1985, and an MFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York City, 1994. While working a career as an Illustrator in Advertising and Film production, I have maintained a practice of painting 'en-plein-air' and continued to explore diverse regions and distant lands.

My aim is to paint authentic, vivid, expressive, modern handling of pictorial landscapes.

My work has won numerous awards in regional painting shows and is in private collections nationally and internationally.

'Open Air Arts' was established in 2010 as a business to promote and sell original paintings, to engage in competitions, and to teach regional workshops.