Medium: Oil on Linen

Size: 12 x 12"

The sun beats down on this St. Augustine street scene making the viewer wish they could seek shade under the red sunbrella. Only a hint of white cloud in the sky gives perhaps a false hope of intermittent cover. Lush Floridian shrubbery bursts over the walls and fences casting shadows beneath them.

Aruna Rao is a Florida-based painter who creates vibrant coastal landscape paintings in Oils. Her work primarily explores the beauty of light, color, and atmosphere in the landscape. Aruna was born and raised in a literary family in India.

Immigrating to the US in 1996, she worked in Information Technology before rediscovering her passion for painting in 2013. She decided to enroll in the MFA Painting program at San Francisco’s Academy of Art University. Her love for nature and travel, prompted her to focus on the landscape genre of painting. After graduating with top honors, she has been painting full-time since 2019 in various parts of the US, from Michigan to California to the mountain ranges of Colorado. She now resides in Central Florida.