Salina Kalnins
After receiving a BA in Fine Art from Olivet College in 1998, Salina Kalnins moved to the Florida Keys where she became an avid boater and deep-sea fisherman and part-time beachcomber. By combining her painting skills with her love of nature and the ocean, she started doing commissioned paintings for her friends and neighbors by painting their boats or homes onto nautical charts or old fishing maps.
Salina combines the highly detailed aspects of boats, lighthouses, or beach scenes with the appropriate markings of nautical charts which are the backgrounds for many of her marine landscape paintings. The nautical charts are printed onto the canvas, then Salina paints the scenes directly on to the surfaces of nautical charts by using acrylic paint and other various mixed-media such as colored pencil for fine detail.
Salina’s artwork has been featured nationally in Power & Motoryacht Magazine, as well as being commissioned to create artwork for the Milwaukee, WI and Grand Rapids Boat Shows. Many of her paintings have been created for private collectors involved with boat and yacht clubs all over the world such as in New Zealand and Dubai.
About Me
Salina has also been commissioned to paint over 200 nautical chart paintings for U.S. Navy service members currently on deployment all over the world. These nautical chart paintings feature naval vessels that include nuclear destroyers, helicopters, submarines, and aircraft carriers painted onto the charts of their home ports and are given as Change-of-Command gifts or hung proudly in the ships’ wardrooms. This has led to a small book being published of commissioned paintings that were completed for the U.S. Navy from 2007-2017.
Salina has been a full-time artist for almost ten years. She currently exhibits her artwork at several summer art fairs and fine art galleries in Michigan. Her studio and business, Art on the Water, is located in Tekonsha, MI just south of Marshall.
Artwork
Guiding Light
”Spending time on or near water has always been a soul-satisfying experience for me. I’ve always been fascinated by the natural beauty of large bodies of water by the way the water not only reflects light and color around it, but also lets you see through it, and discover what lies below the surface.
Like our lives, large bodies of water are in a constant state of transformation. It can be calm and serene, and yet turn violent and tumultuous in the blink of an eye. Painting water scenes and waves is challenging for me for this reason. Water in its basic form is clear, yet becomes colorful and exciting if its environment changes. Some of the most beautiful waves are created after the storm has passed.
Artist Statement
Many of my most prized memories are of traveling to the beach or living in a coastal environment. I love being able to combine my trade as an artist with my favorite hobbies of boating, fishing, beach-combing, and enjoying nature. Conveying a sense of peace and tranquility is my main focus, and I also want to convey a feeling that it’s okay to just sit, relax, and do nothing. I hope to spark pleasant memories of past travels or promote daydreams of where we wish to go in the future. Sometimes art is simply created to make you feel good and smile.”
—Salina Kalnins
