Background

Josefa discovered her love of painting while growing up as the youngest of five children on the family farm near Lake Chiemsee in the Bavarian Alps.

“My mother let me paint whatever I wanted on the walls of my bedroom.  I painted a huge tree that took up half my room,” she says. “It gave me an incredible feeling of freedom.”

Josefa took a different path with her education, choosing instead to study organic farming and agriculture. It didn’t take her long to realize that this life was not for her. After graduating, she spent some years traveling throughout Europe, India and Asia, managing a rock’n roll band, and working for a public relations company. But she couldn’t stop thinking about painting.

“I was always intrigued by art in any form, but especially painting,” she says. “I kept coming back to it time and time again.”

She finally listened to her heart and enrolled in the Peter Zeiler School of Art in Munich to study drawing and painting. Then love took her on an unexpected detour to Canada, and after settling on British Columbia’s beautiful Sunshine Coast in 1999, she met her mentor, the renowned artist Kathryn Jacobi, who taught her how to paint in oils and helped discover her technique and unique style.

Josefa now works from her studio in Gibsons, BC. She is connected with several local B.C. artist groups and has shown her work in numerous exhibitions in the greater Vancouver area and Germany over the last 10 years. She credits gallery owner and fellow painter Morley Baker for giving her the opportunity to show her work and encouraging her to think outside the box with her painting.

“There were often other painters meeting up in his gallery to shoot the breeze and talk about art, and I always would come home energized and with new ideas.”

“I love the strong and vibrant arts community we have here on the Sunshine Coast,” she says. “Ian MacLeod once said, ‘I started to paint and I never stopped!’ Thanks to all my inspiring colleagues and friends I met on my way, I now feel the same.”

To learn more about Josefa’s approach to her work, click here.