Shari grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. With a degree in architecture she worked many years in the profession before making a transition to art. While working as an architect Shari began watercolor painting. She has been a student of sumi-e, traditional Japanese brush painting for several years now and continues it as a weekly practice. The focus, control and freedom of the art form inform her work as a painter and a printmaker.

 

Much of Shari’s artwork reflects the influence of traditional Asian art but is based on her experiences of growing up in California and her Japanese American heritage. Shari’s family ran a nursery business adjacent to their home in the East Bay. The plants and flowers she grew up with, surrounded by in the nursery and garden inspire much of her artwork today. The Nursery Series preserves not only her personal memories but also the collective memory of a place, time and family. 

 

Shari enjoys the close observation of plants, flowers, objects and architecture and renders her impressions of them in detailed etchings and transparent layers of watercolor. Whether she is working with representational or abstract imagery her artwork conveys a sense of quietness.