Monique Motiff of Louisville studied painting and photography at The Art Academy of Cincinnati. Her rich, moody landscapes and elegant bird paintings are executed using a combination of oil and tar with delicate elements of raw drawing and sumi ink visible under many layers of a mixture of bees wax and paraffin, a technique she has developed and perfected over many years. Spending time in Chicago after college Motiff absorbed exciting new trends and techniques in mixing media. Her travels between Chicago and Louisville in those years inspired her to not just copy the landscape she saw along the highway but to transmit her feeling of the landscape in the context of home versus future, and to imbue the skyward snap-shot like glimpses with literal and figurative texture and depth. The interpersonal interpretation of the scenes and the technique results in a richness rarely seen in oil alone. The birds are an extension of the sky motif and reflect her passion for bird-watching. Motiff’s work has been represented in St. Louis, Chicago, Cincinnati and her home, Louisville where she works and with her husband, raises a daughter and a son.