Light Space & Time Online Art Gallery is extremely pleased to announce that Patrice Le Pera has been named as the Gallery’s new featured artist and she will now be promoted by the gallery for the next 14 days in the gallery’s Artist Showcase.
Patrice is an award-winning artist based in California, USA. She was selected as 1 of the top twelve finalists in the gallery’s 33rd Solo Art Exhibition Series. The placement in this competition qualified her work to be showcased in this feature.
Her Artist Showcase feature will be promoted to hundreds of major news outlets. In addition, the gallery will also be featuring and promoting her artwork in the gallery’s various social media networks for further exposure.
Below are Patrice’s Artist Biography, Artist Statement and 5 of her oil on canvas paintings submitted to this competition.
Driven by a profound respect for sacred traditions, Patrice Le Pera has dedicated herself to capturing disappearing cultures through her art. Working primarily in oil, her paintings honor the spiritual, ceremonial, and daily lives of Native American communities, preserving moments of continuity between ancestors and future generations.
Patrice is a listed portrait artist known for vivid, historically grounded representations of sacred and cultural traditions. Her work reflects years of relationship-building with Native communities and elders, emphasizing accuracy, reverence, and lived experience rather than romanticized narrative.
Her professional career includes illustration work with the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation, including children’s books and the fully illustrated MPTN Tribal Dictionary created to support language preservation. Additional illustrated publications include Raggamuffins and The Hallowe’en Pledge.
Patrice has served as Illustrator Coordinator for SCBWI and is an active member of WASCO and the Windsor Arts Council. Her paintings have been exhibited at the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and the Hembree House Gallery, and have received international recognition, including the Exhibizone Grand Prize, Biafarin Spirituality Award, Biafarin Scenic Award, and First Place Portrait, Sonoma County, California.
Her earlier career as a classically trained opera singer in Germany, along with decades of work as a Senior Contract Administrator for NASA’s Space Station Program and international diplomatic construction projects, shaped her disciplined approach and global cultural awareness.
As Marjorie, MPTN Tribal Healer and Elder, once told her: “The work you are doing for us will still be valid in 200 years.” This affirmation remains the guiding compass of Patrice Le Pera’s artistic practice.
My work is dedicated to honoring the living traditions and spiritual continuity of Native American communities, particularly those of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation. Through oil painting, I seek to preserve quiet, human moments—acts of daily life, ceremony, and relationship with the natural world—that carry meaning across generations.
These paintings are not imagined narratives, but are grounded in years of relationship, listening, and learning. I strive to approach each subject with respect and accuracy, allowing the figures to exist with dignity and presence rather than as symbols or romanticized images.
Light, landscape, and gesture are used to reflect an inner stillness—moments where the boundary between the physical and the spiritual world becomes permeable. Water, firelight, and the natural environment are recurring elements, representing continuity, memory, and renewal.
My intention is that these works serve not only as images, but as vessels of cultural memory—honoring those who came before and those who will carry these traditions forward.
To learn more about Patrice and to see more of her artwork, visit her website.
Click the Thumbnail to See the Artwork in a Lightbox
