Shelley Breton is a life-long Maine native living in Freeport Maine. Although her education and career are science-based, she has always had a love of the arts. Mostly self-taught, she began painting in oils 12 years ago.  I love the qualities of oil paint…the move-ability of it on the canvas, the varying thicknesses with which you can paint, the intensity of color and old-world smell you get while working with it. With her expressive-representational style, Shelley strives to evoke a sense of mood, light, hopefulness and place….to help the viewer recall a happy memory, or to encourage an appreciation for the beauty that surrounds us.  She is greatly inspired by the Spanish artist Joaquin Sorolla’s depictions of sunlight and shadow, and by John Singer Sargent’s mastery of light and confident brushwork. Shelley has won numerous awards for her work and is a juried member of the Oil Painters of America (OPA) and the American Impressionist Society (AIS).