June Yokell
"For as long as I can remember I've been drawn to the beauty in everyday life, primarily by looking at the natural world. Simple things, things I notice while walking or looking out a window or seeing a pattern in shadows. While it is not exactly a dream or a memory, it's like entering another world that is right here with us always, carrying with it its sensuality and raw emotion. I'm drawn to painters and writers who describe the physical as well as their psychological response to the land, those who each in his or her way describe the physical or psychological climate of place. I start my paintings by a gesture and try to keep the whole painting fresh from the beginning when I lay down the large planes right through to the layering of the many marks of oil paint that indicate plants or water or cracks in the hill. My goal is to transfer to the viewer, my own non-verbal felt experiences." - June Yokell
June has a love of the physicality of the natural world, with a deep sense of the wonder of life. Her work has been influenced by Monet, Hockney, Cezanne, Van Gough, Diebenkorn, Dodd, Burchfield, Welliver and others. Painting and drawing give her the opportunity to allow all of her thoughts and feelings to show up.
She knew she would be an artist since she was eight years old when first visiting the Old Mill Art School in Elizabethtown, NY. She’s studied painting, drawing, sculpture and dance, at Montclair Museum, Goddard College, Boston University and California College of the Arts, where she received her BFA and MFA.
June has paintings at the Zuckerberg/Chan Acute Care Center in San Francisco, CA, and at the Stanford Cancer Center in Palo Alto, CA and has had her work in the US Embassy in Dubai, United Arab Emirates for a two year period. She’s attended two residencies at Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, Vermont in 1999 and 2008. June has taught painting and drawing privately and at College of Marin for over 20 years. She maintains a studio in San Anselmo, CA and is married to the artist Steven Andresen.
