Nate Ronniger was born in Salt Lake City, Utah in 1977. He attended the University of Utah where he majored in painting and earned a BFA in 2000. Following college, Nate worked as a graphic designer and illustrator as he simultaneously began painting the western landscapes.
By 2002, Nate was focusing entirely on fine art oil landscapes and pursued this career path while living alternately in California and Hawaii. When attending different exhibitions and galleries of contemporary artists, Nate was taken by the modern approach to still life painting. From this inspiration he began to reinvent his own approach to fine art.
Leaving traditional landscapes behind, Nate now paints scenes staged entirely by his own imagination and design. While his popularity grows, so does the scale and complexity of his work. Nate lives in Arizona and shows his work in many exhibitions each year.
About the Art
In many ways, I think of myself as a director. Situating a still life of mine is like putting on a miniature play. There are costumes, characters and props. I want the plot to be intriguing and clear while I aim to present both drama and comedy. Some of my favorite influences are the theater and film noir. I use artistic touches like graphic backdrops and dramatic spot lighting to give my work a similar visual effect and tone. I eliminate superfluous information and retain only what is essential in design. I involve the audience by creating a focal point relating to the rest of the scene in color, pattern, and form. By removing all other noise, I hope to cause a resounding visual impact, and perhaps a smile.
I'm very intrigued with the element of paper. While fashioning paper for the pedestals, foregrounds, and backgrounds, I realized that any idea I have involving color, form, texture, and pattern, can be brought to fruition with this material alone. Torn, translucent, cut, or folded, it can take on any manipulation I come up with in any dimension. The more I constructed with paper, the more I envisioned expanding these settings into greater and more elaborate maquettes from which I can paint.