Roberta Ahrens’ career as a Fine Artist began 35 years ago when she arrived in San Francisco and immediately leaped into the world of creative decorative painting and finishing. She began her career with commissions for work in high-end corporate locations such as the Westin St. Francis and Harry Denton’s and major design work South of Market at Club DV8. 

Beginning in 2005, Roberta began to develop her unique style of Fine Art painting. She works on personally handmade cracked linen canvases, seeking universal themes of beauty, nature, and peace in and through the world. Her life-long love of horticulture brought her to focus on botanical subjects, diving into what she calls the architecture of nature. Roberta paints primarily in acrylics and watercolors and then carves the pieces, etching lines into the plaster. Through these works, she seeks to call attention to the beauty inherent in the natural world.

Recently Roberta has become intrigued by the forms and structures that manifest themselves in bodies of water. Using her same cracked linen materials, her most recent work is an exploration of these forms and expresses a feeling of elemental power. The movement of nature, of creation pushing forward, is empowering in a way, and at a time, when such an expression of natural elemental power is both a personal and a cultural imperative.