About Plein Air Roanoke 2023

Manon Sander is a Florida-based oil painter who has taken it upon herself to savor all the flavors of life. Starting a new painting is like hearing the soft, welcoming jingle of the ice cream truck on a sweltering deep-summer day. The air is heavy with the anticipation of a sweet reward, and as the color melts from Manon’s brush onto that hungry canvas, she tastes the simple, joyous flavor of childhood, when life was lived not just to the fullest, but bursting at the seams.

Like a kid waiting for the ice cream truck to come jostling up the road, Manon never stands still for long on that hot, sun-soaked street, instead dancing from one painting to the next. In fact, when it comes to art, Manon is moving around so much she’s practically a blur.

Like her love for ice cream, her love for art started at a young age in her old stomping grounds of Bavaria and Berlin, Germany, and she has spent her life thus far travelling far and wide, letting the winds of chance carry her to live in Illinois, where she painted murals professionally, to California, where under the tutelage of some of the nation’s premier artists she found her contemporary impressionist style, and on to Florida, where she truly dove headfirst into her deep love for plein air painting. On top of that triple scoop of living locations, she’s had a generous helping of creatively-inspiring rainbow sprinkle travels that range from the wild Alaskan tundra and the scarlet vortex-soaked rocks of Sedona to the crumbling haunts of emerald Ireland and the sea-smattered cliffs of the Amalfi coast. But with local treasures like Naples, St. Augustine, Palm Beach, and Apalachicola so close at hand, Manon is more than happy to call Florida her home.

No matter where she goes, Manon finds beauty in the light and the shifting, shimmering spectrum of colors it holds between its glowing fingers. However, Manon does not simply paint because the colors she sees are beautiful, but rather because the colors she feels are. A strong believer in finding joy in the little things in life, she seeks to capture and share the moments that give her the most happiness, that evoke the rawest of uplifting emotions human nature has to offer. Manifesting these twinkles of delight through vivid oils has brought Manon to numerous awards, national juried exhibitions, galleries, invitational and juried festivals, and inclusion in publications such as Southwest Art and Plein Air Magazine. She was awarded Signature Status in the National Oil & Acrylic Painters’ Society. Manon teaches both weekly painting classes, as well as national and international workshops and is a Mastrius Master Artist, mentoring other artists. She sees painting as being as natural and necessary as breathing, and as crucial, of course, as trying as many flavors of ice cream as possible in one very long and incredible summer.

Associations
​American Impressionist Society
Signature member of National Oil and Acrylics Painters Society
Artist member of California Art Club
Signature Member of The American Society of Marine Artists
Plein Air Palm Beach