Artist Profile:

Jeri Elliott

Jeri was born in New York, but moved overseas with her family when she was 12. Growing up in Chile and Bahrain, Jeri graduated from high school and married an Englishman in Bahrain. Jeri eventually moved to Saudi Arabia where she lived for eight years before immigrating to New Zealand.

In Saudi women are generally not permitted to work (only in hospitals and schools) and therefore Jeri found the time to unearth her love for art and writing.

The initial creations that filled her days in the desert were greeting cards and calendars; depicting local Arabian themes. These were big sellers and soon led to her writing and illustrating a book entitled Your Door to Arabia - over 14,000 copies have sold.

Jeri continues to paint from her Queenstown based home studio. Her stylized landscapes capture the vibrancy of her Otago surroundings.