Biography

Virginia Larrea was born in Ecuador  She lived her childhood and adolescence in Ecuador’s coastal city of Guayaquil. At the age of 10 years old her parents encouraged her to take art classes with local artists and teachers and thus, began her love for drawing and painting.

She studied Architecture where she earned a Bachelor Degree at the Institute of Technology at Monterrey Mexico and also obtained a Master of Architecture Degree at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.

Mostly a self taught artist, Virginia explored the watercolor media for several years and her paintings won several awards at the New Mexico Watercolor Society

Virginia moved to Tampa, Florida in 1993, where she currently makes her home, she opened a small studio in 2000 and is currently fulfilling her dream of devoting more of her time to painting. With oils paintings she is exploring composition and light while concentrating on still life where she is paying meticulous attention to line, form, detail and color. With pastels she is capturing the Florida outdoors, springs and tropical settings that surround this beautiful location where we live. Virginia still works in watercolor when she feels the media will enhance a particular feature on her painting.

Virginia prefers to work from the many sketches she executes. She also has traveled the world, including US, South America and Europe and she will always thank her parents for encouraging the desire of learning through traveling. While in her travels she always sketches and paints small studies for later use in larger works at her studio.