GRES is a French name, pronounced “grace” or “gress” in America. My mother also gave me the French first name of “Elise”—after the Elise of the Hans Christian Andersen's tale, “The Wild Swans.” The Elise of the story is an artist who creates quilts and clothes out of thorny brambles, and she ultimately saves her eleven brothers from their transformation into swans by dressing them in this magical cloth. When she knits the bramble, shaping it to fit the swans' human identities, it is as though she is recreating her brothers in their natural form by the very force of her will. When I create a portrait, I feel as though I'm performing a magic of my own: a portrait captures a fleeting moment of life, saves that moment from the transformations of time, and recreates it for eternity.

I have always been an artist, first and foremost, though I have taken a few detours along the way. I attended college at Duke University, where I took art classes from the late Vernon Pratt; attended law school at the University of Florida and practiced law for two years in South Tampa; and studied abroad in Paris, London, and Rome, where I emulated great artists such as Mary Cassatt, Edgar Degas, and John Singer Sargent.

I've shown my work at the University of Tampa's Scarfone Gallery, the Tampa Artists' Claire de Lune Exhibition, the Lyssa Morgan Gallery Square Show, and at galas in support of various good causes ranging from the Children's Museum of Tampa to the American Cancer Society.

My art has also received media attention. In February 2006, the South Tampa Magazine sought me out to create a portrait of JoAnna Garcia, who plays Reba McEntire's daughter on television, for the lead article of their arts issue. In July 2006, my oil painting, “Holding and Beholding,” was chosen from over 200 paintings to represent the Lyssa Morgan Gallery Square Show in the Tampa Tribune. Local TV news affiliates, as well as the Tampa Tribune, have caught on to the community's interest in my work, and interviewed me for community news features. See the attached clips to the right.

Whether I paint with pastel (a soft chalk form of pure pigment) or with oil, to create portraits or landscapes, I aim for something beyond mere delineation of topography. My pastel paintings are not your typical pastelist's pedestrian sketch; they are perfectly on par with my work in oil. I know how to manipulate both mediums to create exquisitely detailed heirlooms, and my clients know that whatever they commission, they are guaranteed an uncannily realistic likeness.

From family portraits to official portraits, each piece is an immensely enjoyable challenge, a multidimensional sudoku puzzle. I am fascinated with transforming these puzzle pieces into so much more than their elements. The end result is a tangible illumination of spirit and personality: magic.

Previous commissions include, among others:
Duke University
South Tampa Magazine
Manuel and Patricia Versaggi
Leigh Wilson
Dr. Mark and Janice Gold
Dr. Jay and Lorraine Garcia
JoAnna Garcia
Margaret and Thaddius Bereday
Alan and Kellie Bridges
Ron and Maureen Hager
James Kennedy, Esq.
Shannon McIntosh
Dr. Jeffrey Schroeder
Alfred Demange and Jeanne Hardin