Onna Voellmer pulls at the lack of space between self and place, where our internal concepts spill over into solid realities-- and vice versa. It is no surprise this non-objective artist can be found in any place where there are landscapes of influence and inspiration.

Having spent her formative years in Washington state, the Pacific Northwest was Voellmer’s first sense of place that inspired the artist to paint. In 2000, Voellmer received her BFA in Sculpture and Painting from Pacific Lutheran University, Parkland, WA.

However, the expression of place could not occur so cohesively with the concept of self, as it does in her artwork today, had Voellmer not spent time also engaging intimately with the land. In 2002 Voellmer graduated from Central Washington University with a BA in Geography before going on to receive her MS in Soil and Water Science, completed in 2006 at the University of Florida.

It is not only Voellmer’s academic studies that form the foundations of her artwork; she finds it imperative to transcend the solid realities of place to instead arrive at the ephemeral. Cycling over 7,000 kilometers and passing through numerous borderlands in North, Central, and South America, the subjectiveness of land and the fallacy of borders, and the act of separating a place from itself become foundational questions of a physical experience.

Voellmer and her partner moved from Arizona to Northern New Mexico in 2021. Currently, the artist resides in Madrid, NM, with 100 acres of land and 100 dreams of what their place will become in the future.