Marquez Knolls Resident Vonnie Brenno Cameron Paints Through the Pandemic from Home Studio
By LILY TINOCO | Reporter
After retiring in 2019, Palisadian Vonnie Brenno Cameron has returned to painting full-time in the last year—and now, she is taking commissions for personalized oil portraits.
Her work includes paintings of ocean and beach life, urban scenes, and landscapes, which have been the focus of shows in galleries across the country.
But people continue to be her favorite subject, crafting commissioned portraits that are considered cherished family treasures.
Before landing in Pacific Palisades, the Marquez Knolls resident, who specializes in fine arts, was born in Japan, raised in Hawaii and bounced from Los Angeles to New York City, Dallas and New Mexico.
“My art career has kind of gone all over the place,” Cameron explained to the Palisadian-Post.
Cameron graduated from the University of Hawaii with a degree in art and made it a goal to find a career in the art field in California. She moved to LA in the early ’70s to explore a career in advertising.
“I figured that was the way that I could make my living in art,” Cameron said.
She eventually began taking classes at the Art Center College of Design, kicking off a long career in advertising. Cameron spent time as an art and creative director for Ogilvy & Mather, specializing in toy advertising.
“I put in more than 30 years of creating advertisements for toys, which was really fun,” Cameron said. “I got to do Disney princess ads, doll ads … it’s a really fun thing to do, working with little kids and designing really magical ads.”
In the ’80s, Cameron picked up and moved to New York City where she dedicated her time to painting. After nine months in New York, she moved to Dallas, where she had her first gallery.
“I painted full-time … I called them public portraits, there are outdoor paintings of people I captured in outdoor cafes or walking down the street,” Cameron said. “I had a number of one-woman shows and galleries.”
Years later, Cameron returned to LA, moving to the Palisades in 1989—where she remarried and raised her two children. She also returned to advertising, doing freelance work and more toy advertising.
Cameron shared that her two children both went to Marquez Charter Elementary School, Paul Revere Charter Middle School and ultimately graduated from Palisades Charter High School. They also both graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Cameron explained that her daughter is currently a dermatologist, completing her residency at Stanford, and her son is working at an ad agency in marketing.
“And that puts me to where I am now,” she said.
Cameron retired from her advertising career just last year, returning to painting full-time.
“I’m doing a lot of paintings of ocean scenes and surfers and paddleboarders and portraits,” Cameron said. “I really miss painting people, so lately what I’ve been doing is putting people in the ocean, at the beach, all kind of back together because I can see the ocean from where we live.”
Cameron shared that she has always loved painting portraits of people and capturing their spirits, even since she was a kid, recalling sketching her peers at a high school carnival and painting portraits of friends for their parents at Christmas time.
She is currently taking commissions and working out of her home studio. Each individual portrait commission includes initial concept discussion, photo session(s) with COVID-19 safe distancing, approval of photo selection for reference, and agreement on layout and size.
The photography session allows Cameron, who wears a mask, to take photos to work with.
“I’ve found over the years, having somebody sit for me … the sitter gets bored and tired, and I found what I was doing was painting people who looked like they were bored and tired and their back hurt,” she said with a laugh. “So I work with photographs.”
After taking photos, she works with her subject collaboratively to choose the best ones, and agree on a layout and size before she gets to work.
For more information or to inquire about purchasing a painting and/or commissioning a portrait, visit vonniebrennocameron.com.
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