Collection: Valerie Coursen

About the Artist: Valerie Coursen is a contemporary artist who works just outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in a large barn-shaped studio next to her house. Coursen is known for her distinctive color cut-outs on paper and her mixed-media paintings on canvas. Her passion for art was ignited at a young age surrounded by bold, colorful interiors and clothing as well as art lessons in a neighbors historical barn. Drawing, color and composition explorations continued to evolve in the summers as she drew for a local designer and helped create hand designed textiles and products. As a teen she took the train into Boston University for figure drawing class which led to exploring art in depth at The Rhode Island School of Design. After graduation she was hired by companies such as Pottery Barn, Shoebox Greetings etc, to create illustrations for many products. She also created award winning children’s books for Henry Holt, American Girl, etc. This year she has been working in her barn shaped studio next to her house and creating large and small scale fine art. She taps into what ignited her about creating art from the very beginning and strives to make each piece give the viewer a glimmer of recognition or evoke a mood.