My name is Alana Holst and I am a professional artist specializing in Acrylic Painting.  I love large formats, brilliant colour and sculptural aesthetics.  My true passion is for colour, texture and design and how compositions can play an emotional role in the viewer.

Art has always been a passion of mine.  I knew from a very early age that art was going to a strong influence in my life.

Other than a short stint as a bull-headed young adult, flunking out of the Alberta College of Art & Design, I am self-taught.  I began my pursuit of art as a career in my teens, having started out with a proficiency in the medium of graphite.  I dabbled in watercolours and pastels and then found acrylic paint.  For years I worked with student grade paints and inferior supports.  In 2002, I learned more about acrylic paint and what it could do and where I could take it.  At the same time, I also began to explore the nature of gel mediums.

I draw my inspiration from elements of nature that I find close at hand, in my own 'back-yard', that is the prairies of Alberta.  I do not paint traditional landscapes and scenes.  I choose, instead, to focus on a particular piece of the scene or object and enlarge upon it, inviting my viewers to stop and take stock of how beautiful something is that you otherwise might not have given a second, or even a first, glance.  My work is not abstract, but rather hyper-realistic.  I try to relate my love of nature and her bounty through the use of colour, texture and 3-dimensional objects.  I hope that collectors of my work can be touched in some way to Stop and Smell the Roses and find the beauty in the everyday objects that surround us.

I live on the doorstep to the Alberta Foothills, working and living in High River, AB where I also run a commercial art gallery, Big Rock Hub Gallery.  Nature is bountiful.  Deer graze in my front lawn.  I can watch an exciting array of birds hop from one feeder to the next.  Manicured gardens and natural prairie scapes, each close at hand, are my bountiful inspiration.  I feel truly blessed when I can settle into my studio and be surrounded by this serenity.  I hope that the passion I have for my work and for nature's beauty is reflected in my work.