Paragon Fine Arts

Parris Kolsteren is a Vancouver based figurative oil painter and Muralist, creating work with an otherworldly, Nostalgic feel, while focusing on a classical application and attention to detail. Kolsteren started out her professional art career creating artwork for local bands as a staple of Vancouver's Rock and Heavy metal scene. Her father, an artist and audiophile himself, was a constant influence in her creative journey. Watching him bead elaborate masterpieces and carve dragons, wizards and masks out of wood and soapstone. His art, both traditional to his cree heritage and embracing a freedom of expression all of his own. When Kolsteren wasn't watching her father work she was flipping through records or reading books with masterful cover art painted by the likes of Frank Frazetta, Boris Vallejo and Roger Dean. 

 

Primarily self-taught, and a mother of 2, Kolsteren worked as a Figure model for art schools since 2019 in order to gleam more understanding of expression through form and a practical understanding of anatomy. It was through working with art educators that she met her mentor and studio mate Jay Senetchko, under whom she studied for 3 years. She has since devoted herself to her art full-time, painting in her home studio and creating Murals like a larger than life Frida Khalo for the Ambleside Dundarave BIA alongside Senetchko and local businesses like The Painted Ship in Kitsilano. She's currently working on a series of fantasy Pieces spotlighting strong women and mothers and turning a genre of art that has been dominated by men on its head, determined never to paint a distressed damsel, but the women who inspire through the true stories of their strength.