About The Artist…

My paintings are inspired by the natural beauty of the environment around me. While walking through the countryside or strolling along a deserted beach during the winter months, I am inspired to capture the feeling of vastness on canvas. The skies, the clouds and the colors of the landscape, which change with the seasons, leave me with inspirations for an infinite number of paintings, waiting to be created. At my Studio, I usually have several works in progress, working hard to complete an idea before moving on to the next. 

Zofia Lategano is a landscape painter residing in Leesburg, Virginia. She mostly paints with oils and acrylics on canvas but is not limited to these venues. She is also an avid photographer. Her most recent awards include an honorable mention in the Hatteras Island Photography Contest for her photograph entitled "Hatteras Thunderhead". In the same year, she also received a Merit Award Ribbon for her painting, "Run for Fun" in the Inaugural OBX Marathon Art Competition.

 Zofia's interest in the arts began at an early age with visits to Manhattan art galleries and museums while growing up in New Jersey. Zofia graduated from Montclair State University in New Jersey with a Master of Arts degree in 1990. Her major field of study was in figurative drawing and painting. She completed studies abroad in Krakow, Poland, at the Jagiellonian University during the summer of 1989. Her desire to travel led her on trips to Italy where she painted a series of "plein air" Italian landscapes during her stays. She also traveled abroad to London and Paris where she enjoyed visiting art museums and galleries.

 Zofia's most influential artistic accomplishments came about during a nine year stay on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. She had been vacationing on the barrier islands for at least 20 years prior to moving there permanently in 1998. She quickly established an art studio and opened her own Art Gallery a year later. Zofia's Art Gallery was both a Gallery and painting studio where visitors could meet the artist at work in her studio. She offered art lessons daily and quickly became known for her energetic personality and enthusiastic teaching style.

 Zofia produced well over a hundred paintings depicting the sand dunes, clouds and seascapes of the Outer Banks. She produced an Art Exhibition at her Gallery entitled, "Hatteras Clouds and Skies" in 2006. One of the projects for this show was to complete a seventeen foot long by 5 foot high canvas which she stretched across the longest wall space in her studio. She finished the painting in early January of 2007, taking a full year to paint. The large canvas, which Zofia refers to simply as "Vast Beach Landscape", begins at one end of the canvas with rolling storm clouds out at sea painted in dark blues and grays. As the painting moves to the other end of the canvas, the sky clears into billowing while cumulus clouds with the sun illuminating the beach and the sea grass on the sand dunes. Birds and wildlife abound. But as one looks back at the storm clouds at the other end of the landscape, there is a reminder of the intensity of nature during the inevitable hurricane seasons to come.

 Zofia and her family moved to Leesburg, Virginia after the spring of 2007. Zofia quickly became involved in the arts in the town and continually visits the galleries and quaint shops she is familiar with from previous stays with family in the area. Zofia is currently working on several canvases, painting the landscape around her. Her new studio space is located in a late 1800's farm house on a working farm on the outskirts of town. She is truly inspired by the rolling hills of Loudoun County and its many fine artists.

Offering on tour: Refreshments, Demonstrations and participation in painting, Take home your own small painting, Lots of artworks for sale, small and large, Tours of working farm and grape vineyard, kids activities indoors and outdoors.
Selling: Oil paintings, acrylics, watercolors in all sizes. Photographs and creative gifts.