Bio

Ann Ekstrom is a Fort Worth painter from a family of artists – raised in the art-oriented household of her mother, the late painter and printmaker, Beth Lea Clardy. She earned a B.FA. degree from Texas Christian University, and received additional academic training at the University of Texas at Austin and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia. Ekstrom’s interests and versatility range from printmaking to watercolor painting to large-scale oils. Her 72-foot painting, Hints of a Life, is permanently installed at Tarrant County College, Southeast Campus. Her paintings are included in corporate and private collections across North Texas. Ekstrom is a popular Fort Worth lecturer and has been featured in the Kimbell Art Museum’s program “The Artist’s Eye.” In addition to studio work, Ekstrom currently works as a painting instructor for Texas Christian University’s Extended Education program. She was recently selected by the office of Fort Worth Public Art for a project at Penrose and W. Vickerin the neighborhood now officially known as “Bomber Heights.” Ekstrom is a long-time promoter of Art in the Metroplex; a steering committee member of EASL (Emergency Artists’ Support League), and was recently a member of the Exhibition Advisory Panel of the Fort Worth Community Arts Center. 

Ann Ekstrom’s paintings are a lot like looking into a drawer full of vintage bakelite and celluloid buttons, pins, baubles and beads – just magnified to a grand scale. She preserves pieces of costume jewelry, tiny toys, highly collectible forms of wearable art and other odd bits of ephemera by enlarging them on canvas, then expertly combines these objects for creative and unusual still lifes, giving her subjects a new life of their own. Her highly trained eye for color, pattern and texture is evident in her meticulous arrangements of small objects. Her paintings beg to be examined to fully absorb the delicate nuances in story telling. Expertly controlled, her palette, her shading technique and understanding of light and form make even her small canvases take on a presence of their own.