Angel Ambrose attended Illinois State University where she studied with Dr. Harold Gregor and Professor James Butler. She graduated in 1985 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting. She also received ISU’s “Best Undergraduate Painter” award in 1985.

Ambrose has been traditionally classified as a contemporary landscape painter. She uses landscapes as an arena for commentary on her life and the world around her. Her stylized trees become figures on stage and the landscape becomes the backdrop. She chooses lyrical titles to add a sense of poetry to the paintings. The title juxtaposed against the image invites the viewer to participate in the interpretation. Ambrose uses color symbolically to stress an inward vision rather than one of realism. Rich, evocative color calls you to rest from the trials of this world in her painted safe havens.

Ambrose has had many exhibitions of her work: Carroll Reece Museum, Johnson City, TN; Watercolor USA, Patron Purchase Award, Springfield Art Museum, Springfield, MO; Illinois State Museum, Springfield, IL; Eureka College, Eureka, IL; Chicago Street Gallery, Lincoln, IL; as well as numerous shows in the Bloomington-Normal area where she lives. A few of the shows in her hometown of Bloomington-Normal have been at McLean County Art Center, a retrospective show of 36 paintings spanning 20 years at Bromenn Hospital; University Galleries, Illinois State University, and the Phoenix Gallery.

Also, she was one of fifteen featured artists in an article called, “Ones to Watch,” in Watercolor Magazine’s Yearbook 2001. This Special Editor’s Edition was dated February 2001. As a frequently collected artist, her work was featured at the McLean Co. Arts Center at a show called, “The Collectors Eye” September 2002. Recently she was asked to be a part of a group show at the Mitchell Museum in Mt. Vernon, IL.

Ambrose resides in the thriving artist community of Bloomington-Normal, between Chicago, St. Louis, and Indianapolis.