Biography

Aviva Kramer was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1954.   Moving to Southfield, a suburb of Detroit, she went to public schools and graduated from high school in 1972.   During that time, she developed an interest in art, specifically ceramics and jewelry.   Intending on studying jewelry design at Wayne State University, she quickly became interested in drawing and painting early on in her freshman classes.   After painting perfunctory still-lifes and figures, she realized that she was more interested in abstraction, particularly inspired from a life-long affinity for nature.   Prior to receiving her M.F.A. from Wayne State University in Painting she worked as an administrative assistant in the Department of Education at the Detroit Institute of Arts.   Upon receiving her Masters degree, she moved to Chicago in 1991.   In Chicago, she was a member and President of ARC Gallery, a long-standing artists' cooperative gallery. In 2008, Aviva moved to the Los Angeles area and is a member of the board of Artcore Gallery at the Union Center for the Arts.

Her recent work is fueled by European travel (a passion for the last decade), particularly to Italy. She developed a reverence for Italian Renaissance and Ornamental art which has been a powerful force in her current work.