For the last three decades, art has been a major focus of Cindy Saadeh’s life in one respect or another. The painter became a professional artist 25 years ago, balancing her creative energies with the day-to-day business of running a gallery, which represented 80 local and regional artists in northeast Tennessee, and also teaching painting classes. Wanting to connect with the community through art, Saadeh was also involved in community art projects and active with various local city design/art boards.

Painting in an impressionistic/abstract style that lends itself well to her chosen medium, Saadeh is now immersed in the landscapes of Charleston and captures the scenes that inspire her in a mixture of oil paints and cold wax. “I’ve always loved painting in oils—probably due, in part, to my two-and-a-half-year apprenticeship with an artist in France,” she says. “There are more opportunities in using oil and wax for texture and exposing the colors underneath. I never really know what’s going to happen in a piece when I start it, and this process is much more exciting to me than something from a reference, as I’ve always done in the past.”

Saadeh is represented by The Gallery at Sweetgrass in Wild Dunes Resort, Hagan Fine Art in Downtown Charleston, Blue Moon Gallery, Frame in Brevard, North Carolina, and New Morning Gallery in Asheville, North Carolina.