Serena Supplee
Thirty years of living on and loving the Colorado Plateau serve as the inspiration for Serena Supplee’s artwork.  Her passionate palette explores the intensity of Grand Canyon colors when half a rock is in sunlight and the rock wall behind it is in shadow. These are exciting moments to capture on paper.

Serena has developed a personal expression that no photograph can portray. To become better at sketching first impressions, she gave away her camera in 1981, and used her eyes rather than a camera lens to capture the feeling of the moment. Her watercolors and oils portray the height, might, and majesty of the canyons and the moods of the river from quiet eddies to rambunctious rapids. Serena also constructs sandstone-inspired sculptures and paints geometric landscapes that are woven into rugs by Navajo weavers.

Originally from Iowa, Serena moved to Arizona and earned her BFA at Northern Arizona University in 1981. After graduating, Serena moved to Moab, spending eight years as a guide on the Colorado, Green and San Juan rivers. She has rowed her own boat through the Grand Canyon many many times, often spending 3 weeks on the river out of touch with civilization. Since 1995, Serena retreats to Phantom Ranch every January to paint in the depths of the Canyon and create a t-shirt design for the Ranch. In 2006 she completed a series of paintings focused on the rapids and the Inner Gorge of the Grand Canyon. Her first book, “Inner Gorge Metaphors,” features 52 of these paintings with original poems. Serena is currently working on a new series which begins with the temples of the Grand Canyon and leads into places of sanctuary. This series will be featured at the Powell Museum in Page, Arizona in March 2012.