Joan Hooper Feibelman

Joan von Kurnatowski Hooper Feibelman is inspired by the wonders of nature and creation. Her paintings are taken from her surroundings, her travels, her photographs.
“Every single day I see something that I am compelled to recreate. Sometimes it’s the vista viewed from the car window, other days, just a tiny detail to be quickly rendered in pastel or watercolor. I always have five or six works in progress, moving from piece to piece, medium to medium, brush in one hand, pastel in the other.”

A native New Orleanian, Joan discovered her love for watercolor painting as a child in a class at the New Orleans Museum of Art and later studied Art History at Newcomb College. She was, however, unable to pursue her passion for drawing and painting for fifty years while she raised her two sons and developed a real estate investment business. Concurrent with this business, she expressed her creative passion through interior design and the renovation of many historic properties in New Orleans.

She studied at the New Orleans Academy of Fine Art, was a student of Karen Stastny at the JCC, and currently studies with Louisiana pastel artist Nancy Stutes. She is a member of the Louisiana Watercolor Society. Her pieces have been acquired by a number of collectors across the country and in Canada.

There are other artists in her family. Her mother was sculptress Joan Barlow von Kurnatowski. Evelyn von Kurnatowski Benham, her aunt, was an artist specializing in botanical watercolors.

She is now spending every possible hour interpreting her views in watercolors and pastels and hopes to continue to do so for many years to come.