Los Angeles Artist Gets Rave Reviews from English Art Collectors

Athena Mantle, Los Angeles Fine Artist, was recently commissioned by a family from England to do seven paintings for their Arizona home. After receiving the first three completed paintings, they were thrilled and had this to say,

“Have just opened your paintings now and absolutely love them - they look magnificent above our formal sofa. Must send you a photo also of how they look. Thank you so much, we are completely thrilled. Also very impressed that you managed to complete them in time. Our first guests arrive on Sunday and they are art connoisseurs so look forward to impressing them! Again, many thanks and very best wishes, James and Shona”

The family had been looking for art with desert plants to display in their new second home in Arizona. They found Athena Mantle’s work on the Xanadu Gallery website, an art gallery in Scottsdale, AZ displaying several of Ms. Mantle’s paintings.

The paintings are quite large in size and depict close-up sections of blue and green agave plants with lots of light and shade.  

While Athena does bear the famous Mantle name (Mickey Mantle was her cousin), she did not inherit the baseball gene! She is however, a very talented full-time artist living and painting in the San Gabriel Mountains. Her work has been consistently featured in many Southern California shows and can be seen currently at the “RED” exhibition presented by Danielak Art and The Women’s City Club of Pasadena (http://danielakart.com)

Athena works from photographs that she takes of her subjects which she collects in her travels in and out of town as well as from her own garden.  She then injects her own splash of enthusiasm into the subject and relays that onto the canvas.  While oil is her primary medium she also enjoys working with pastel, pencil and watercolor.  “I use the medium that I feel will best create the effect I’m going for,” the artist says, “the ultimate goal for me as an artist is to bring the subject to life and uplift the viewer.”

For information on upcoming art exhibits feature Athena Mantle’s work, visit her blog.

About Athena Mantle

Athena Mantle was born in Santa Monica, CA and lived there until the age of 8 when her family decided it was time for a change.  She spent the next ten years on the Gulf Coast of Florida.  Always an independent spirit, she left home at 18 to go back to her native land and has made it her permanent home ever since.

Athena’s artistic journey began as a child who loved to draw.  She studied perspective and figure drawing from books and often spent her free time sketching animals and faces from magazines with pencil and paper.  Encouraged by a friend, she continued her art education at Mission Renaissance in Los Angeles. In 1994 she became an art instructor, and began teaching children to draw and paint.

Today painting full-time at her hillside home, which she likes to call her tree house, she maintains an array of succulent and cactus specimens often found in her work, which can be viewed on her website: http://athenamantle.com.