Elaine Weiner-Reed

About the Artist

Elaine Weiner-Reed is an award-winning bilingual visual artist living in Maryland. She earned a B.A. and a B.S. in French (language, linguistics, literature, and education) with a German minor and undeclared second minor in Sculpture from West Chester University, Pennsylvania (1978, 1979). While working as a French linguist, writer, researcher, and leader for the U.S. Government (USG), she earned an M.A. in French from Middlebury College, Vermont (Language and Linguistics, 1989). A believer in continual learning, she later received a professional post-graduate certificate in Information Technology and Telecommunications from Johns Hopkins University, School of Business and Professional Studies (2002). Three business trips to four Francophone African countries and six immersion study trips to France (1992-2015) broadened her world view, expanded her creative insights, and enriched her art portfolios.   While achieving professional certifications in language, leadership, and various technical arenas throughout a 37-year tandem career in the USG, Weiner-Reed consistently developed depth and diversity of art portfolios, expertise, and credentials. Wanting to learn how to transform the 3-D world (sky, landscapes, people) into a 2-D world of color, she mastered first classical oil painting (1980’s), then moved on to explore watercolors and watermedia on paper (1990’s-2005), eventually embracing acrylics and latex on unstretched and stretched canvas (2005-current). Weiner-Reed’s torn canvas and plaster series as well as her stone carving adventures in Poland (2014, 2017) heralded her return to sculpture. Since 2017, not only has she continued painting, but Weiner-Reed has also been creating sculptures: a figurative series in plaster and metal mesh, and a welded metal music-inspired assemblage series incorporating scrap and found objects. Although Weiner-Reed had painted interior murals, in 2017 during her second EU-funded international artist residency in Poland, she was hand-selected to a 6-person artist team charged by the Myslenice Town Council to paint a public mural along the Interstate.   Throughout her art career, Weiner-Reed has distinguished herself as an expressionist abstract artist with uncommon vision. Her art qualifications include juror, lecturer, blogger, committee member, and instructor. In 2020, she published four children’s books which she wrote and illustrated (Amazon). Weiner-Reed is a Lifetime Signature Artist in the Baltimore Watercolor Society (BWS), and Signature Artist in the Potomac Valley and Georgia Watercolor Societies. She holds Nautilus Fellowship Signature status in the International Society of Experimental Artists (ISEA) and serves on its Scholarship and Public Facebook Committees. In June 2022 she was awarded a Montpelier Arts Center solo show and honorarium by Prince George’s County. Weiner-Reed shoulders her role as an artist in society as a public trust. She was awarded an MSAC Creativity Grant (January 2023) for a new, individual-focused portrait series. Believing “art is an action word,” Weiner-Reed treats others with respect and kindness and donates a portion of every art sale to charity. Her “Every Painting is a Song (Story)” cross-disciplinary creativity initiative grew out of her commitment to ignite the imaginations of others and foster community interaction and dialogue. Her artwork has been featured in international exhibitions in China, Hong Kong, India, Italy, Spain, France, Poland, Canada, and over 80 international, national, and regional group shows – including three solo and two group shows in Chelsea, NYC. Her work is in public (Poland), corporate (U.S.), museum (Italy), and private collections (43) in Europe and throughout the U.S.  She is currently applying for and partnering with local artists on public art sculpture and mural projects as a way of connecting art with community.   (Artist Portrait - Photo Credit: Ceylon Mitchell / M3 Mitchell Media & Marketing (@CeylonMitchell / @m3mitchellmedia)