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Aleah Koury comes from a diverse artistic background with a Bachelor Degree in Ceramics and a Master’s in Printmaking. This has encouraged him to be bold in experimenting with new materials and imagery. At various times he has incorporated collage printing, found materials and a variety of different types of paint media in his work. A gifted colourist over the past decade Koury has increasingly been drawn to pastel as the purest expression of the colourist’s art. By the late 1980’s Koury had made a national reputation with a series of abstracted landscapes called “Skyscapes”. In these works the gesture of the artist and the full brilliance of colours are revealed in the unclouded intensity of the raw pastel pigment. More recently Koury has further stretched the expressive possibilities of pastel by combining it with enamel and latex paints gold, bronze and silver leafinf, oil pastels and pencils to create work of spectacular richness and texture. The abstract “D” series hint at the decorative sensibilites of Klimt and Jugendstil while the floating geometric forms recall Klee or Miro. The “Gardens” and “Floral Still Life” series draw inspiration from the 19th Century French Master Odilon Redon as well as Koury’s own Californian garden and particularly the exotic orchids which he cultivates. In all works it is the uninhibited sensuality of colour that is the truest subject whether found in the beauty of the natural world or the poetry of the imagination. Aleah Koury was born in Bellingham Washington and spent his early childhood in California before moving to the Midwest. In 1975 he received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Missouri at Columbia and in 1980 a Masters from the University of Southern Illinois at Edwardsville. Since that time Koury has lived in and around San Francisco and the Bay area.