Born in 1971 in San Francisco, Amy Nelder paints “Pop Trompe L’oeil” canvases. Employing exquisite realism, she infuses au courant imagery to celebrate domestic moments or to convey messages of contemporary socio-political import.

Nelder studied at the University of California at Berkeley and the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia. Early in her career, she was the Forensic Artist for the San Francisco Police Department and the Medical Examiner’s Office. She has shown at the de Young Museum; Walt Disney Museum; Uffizi Galleries, Florence, Italy; Chloe Gallery; and Blue Line Arts.

From the Artist... I call my primary still life work Pop Trompe L’oeil - I’ve been painting in this particular style since halfway through my pregnancy with my daughter, Chloe, the namesake of my Chloe Gallery in San Francisco, founded by me and my husband Greg Lejnieks in 2009. One day in the middle of my pregnancy, I became obsessed with painting a cupcake and a diet coke in trompe l’oeil style. I had never had any sort of connection to still life or high realism til that moment, it was simply an image and an urge that came over me quite obsessively and all-encompassingly. I was in the middle of a commission in my old style at the time, and I was so distracted I had to stop and draw this little still life image on a post-it note to get it out of my head but couldn’t find time to paint it for another two weeks. I felt such relief when I finally got it onto the canvas! I thought that was it but then my brain wanted me to paint another, and another, and I found myself constantly seeing and thinking the world in high realism still lifes all the time, everywhere I looked I saw a narrative still life painting.I call my primary still life work Pop Trompe L’oeil - I’ve been painting in this particular style since halfway through my pregnancy with my daughter, Chloe, the namesake of my Chloe Gallery in San Francisco, founded by me and my husband Greg Lejnieks in 2009. One day in the middle of my pregnancy, I became obsessed with painting a cupcake and a diet coke in trompe l’oeil style. I had never had any sort of connection to still life or high realism til that moment, it was simply an image and an urge that came over me quite obsessively and all-encompassingly. I was in the middle of a commission in my old style at the time, and I was so distracted I had to stop and draw this little still life image on a post-it note to get it out of my head but couldn’t find time to paint it for another two weeks. I felt such relief when I finally got it onto the canvas! I thought that was it but then my brain wanted me to paint another, and another, and I found myself constantly seeing and thinking the world in high realism still lifes all the time, everywhere I looked I saw a narrative still life painting.