Neil Sulier as an Artist:

"The purpose of my art is to capture the spirit and excitement of the event, whether real or imaginary." Neil Sulier, a native of Kentucky, has traveled extensively around the world. His watercolor paintings are impressionistic. Many corporate and private collections have acquired his paintings.

Sulier, a 1960 graduate of UK's Gatton College of Business and Economics, has created water colors and mixed media paintings as a serious hobby since 1979. Sulier, a Lexington native, is primarily a self-taught artist, occasionally attending workshops with noted working artists from around the country. He pursued the hobby in his spare time throughout his career with the family business, Sulier Insurance. He continued to paint after his retirement from the insurance business in 1987 and opened an event photography business. He also is a part-time inventor, first launched with the development of a gardening tool called the Weed Bandit. But painting is his first love. Sulier said he has no favorite subject matter, and his landscapes range from ocean scenes to heavily wooded images. He paints from his imagination, taking weeks or months to finish a particular piece. He always has several paintings in progress so he can hop from one image to another when he feels the inspiration. Many of his renderings lean toward the abstract with a dash of impressionistic realism, and some have a decidedly oriental flair. When he wants a change of pace, he turns to his inventions.

"Everyday I'm working on something," Sulier said.

He began painting watercolors almost on a whim and not because he felt a particular talent with the brush.

"I just started," he said. "But I didn't have any expectations. I used to go to a lot of the art shows and bought a lot of art - not expensive art - but I always supported the art shows around Lexington. I was also the president of the Lexington Art League when we had our first official location, the studio and gallery in the Woodhill Shopping Center before Loudon House."

In addition to the Lexington Art League, Sulier is a member of the Kentucky Watercolor Society and Kentucky Professional Photographers Association.

Neil Sulier as a Collector:

Works of art consist of all mediums, in painting and sculpture.

His interest in building the Art Collection is to have works of art that offer a variety of mediums, styles, and subject matter. It is important for him, personally, to appreciate every work of art on its own merit, or, if for no logical reason other than, "I just like it," and that is what really matters. "I feel the real value of art cannot be measured in its market price but rather in the intrinsic value that people individually derive when they view a work of art. It is impossible to measure the psychological effect, the hours of conversation, discussion and the stimulation that art may provide the viewer. It has feeling, expression, dynamics and life as well as a part of the artist who created it. In an age of problems and crisis, viewing art can give on a rejuvenation and inner power to cope with these problems."

Neil Sulier as a Publisher:

Selected works from the Collection are being reproduced. Mr. Sulier personally supervises each step in the reproduction process. Currently, there are about 180 works of art being reproduced and new releases will be added to the line on a regular basis.

He feels that fine paintings should become public once painted and are a part of our cultural heritage and should be available for viewing by as many people as possible.

In art "the original" will always be the original and a part of the artist. Through good reproduction, access is given to a much broader audience and results in a greater appreciation of the artist.

Art has the unique ability to give pleasure to the artist, to the owner of the original, and to the owners of the reproductions.