Artist of the Month April 2026

Theresa Kasun

Shelton, Connecticut, USA

Theresa is a classically trained figurative artist and received her graduate degree from the NY Academy of Art.  She is also trained in the techniques and philosophies of Impressionism and received her BFA from  the Kansas City Art Institute where she studied under Wilbur Niewald. She paints a wide range of subject matter from still lifes and portraits to en plain air painting. 

Her wine still life was a top seller on kitchen textiles at major retail stores during the 2000’s as a licensed artist.  She has been painting original holiday designs on the windows of small businesses throughout the NYC area for over 30 years, and can be found painting en plain air around Connecticut and at Citi Field in Queens, home of the major league baseball team, the Mets.

How and when did you start creating art?

I’ve been drawing and painting since I was able to hold a crayon in my hand.  My mother is a painter and always fostered my creativity.

What media and genres do you work in?

I work mostly in oils on canvas.  I also work in watercolor for quick sketches and I use acrylic paint for holiday windows in the NYC area. The genre I paint in is almost entirely figuratively; both highly rendered and impressionistically.

Who or what are your influences?

Caravaggio, Bernini, Cezanne, Monet, Henri Fantin-Latour, Van Gogh, Carl Heinrich Bloch.

Contemporary influences were some of my professors; Wilbur Niewald, Martha Earlbacher, Edward Schmidt, Steven Assael ,Will Cotton.

What was your inspiration for

Cake Heaven

?

Cake Heaven originally started out as a 6 ft x 4 ft vertical portrait with the sky in the background. However, it fell over onto the corner of a chair and it poked a big hole where the head was located. I restretched the canvas and made it smaller to remove the rip. It was now 4ft x 5ft. I turned it horizontally and decided to paint cakes on top of it. 

I had been painting donuts and cakes on small canvases for several years. I was fascinated with the colors and textures of frosting and decided why not save this large canvas by painting cakes on it one at a time. I went from painting cakes high up in the clouds to cakes and donuts in the earthly brown on the bottom.  It looked like a little piece of heaven, thus Cake Heaven. It is in the private collection of Brooke Shields and is on the wall behind her in some of her podcasts.

Describe your creative process?

Colors, beautiful combinations of colors and textures inspire me whether it is outside in nature or something man made like desserts.  I also love to put paint to canvas as an event unfolds live and in front of me. There is something so profound about capturing a moment in time.

What are you working on currently?

I am currently working on my daughter’s wedding portrait, finishing up with the details on my opening day en plain air painting I did at Citi Field baseball stadium, and have been painting spring windows at several small businesses.

What are your near/long term goals as an artist?

My short term goals are preparing for a wedding in the Azores in Portugal this June where I will be the sketch artist. From there I am traveling to several other cities in Europe and will be painting en plain air, everywhere I go.

My long term goals as an artist is to finish my book, 30 plus years of window painting in NYC and stories from the hood. Also, long term I want to focus on licensing my artwork again and to build up my reputation as a live event and wedding painter.

Where can people view/purchase your work (gallery, website, etc)?

I post most of my paintings on Instagram, some on X and some on TikTok. 

All of my window paintings, from 2014 to the present, are on Pinterest.

I also have a website at  https://theresakasun.com/