Rainy Saratoga, 8x8

About Eden Compton

American painter Eden Compton was born in Texas and raised in Connecticut. She owns and operates a fine art gallery in the arts district of Saratoga Springs in upstate New York. Her gallery is also a teaching studio where she offers private classes and a variety of workshops in pastel, oil and gouache. Her “Intro to Gouache” workshop is a particularly popular class in the area.

Eden has been involved in art her entire life as her grandparents were well known artists in Texas who kept a studio in Mexico where they were known to paint occasionally with Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. Though always an avid sketcher, Eden started painting professionally when she quit her advertising career in New York City and moved to the Caribbean to work as a charter chef on a private boat over 20 years ago. She met her husband Richard in the Virgin Islands and together they sailed and ran private sailing charter boats in the Caribbean and Eastern U.S. for many years before moving ashore permanently and settling in upstate NY.

"While my extensive travel has sparked an interest in different types of subject matter ranging from rural landscapes to rainy cityscapes to market scenes, my work is an attempt to synthesize memory painting based on observation with my plein air studies. It begins with sketches and drawings done on location and then completed in the studio where I can spend more time developing the concept of the painting. I am prefer visual expressions of poetic concepts rather than literal interpretations of a scene.  I am currently exploring a more contemporary expression of traditional subject matter in my work."

Her formal art education began with a BA in Art History from Colgate University and independent courses at the International Center for Photography in NYC. She has studied with many master artists in workshops and classes over the years. Her award winning work has been included in national juried shows including the Catherine Lorillard Society, Salmagundi and the International Pastel Society as well as numerous regional and local shows. Her work can be seen in galleries in upstate New York and Boston. She is a juried member of the Degas Pastel Society, Oil Painters of America, Portrait Society of America and an Associate with Distinction of the American Women Artists Association.