Nicole Phungrasamee Fein American, b. 1974

The San Francisco-based artist has become known for creating beguiling works of deceptively minimal simplicity, using a basic technique of brushing lines of lightly pigmented watercolor in free-hand strokes across heavyweight paper. Extreme concentration is required to achieve the ethereal quality of these works – a result of hundreds of precisely timed and executed layers. The rigorous, almost punishing, process produces a contradictory effect of transcendent serenity and astonishing beauty.