Abbie Rabinowitz ~ Bio

Abbie paints in an expressive, painterly style. She observes and paints directly from nature, while her abstracts are an emotional response toward viewing nature in our rapidly changing planet.

Abbie was born the third out of six children and raised in a creative household where her parents, both trained artists, taught children’s art classes out of their large, rambling, stone house that they built in rural Connecticut. Visitors who came to her family home were amazed that she and her siblings were allowed to draw all over the walls. It seemed only natural that Abbie chose to become an artist.

After graduating from art school with a BFA from SUNY at Purchase, Abbie moved to the San Francisco Bay Area. During her 30 years in California, Abbie lived on a houseboat in Sausalito, joined a commune in the Haight Ashbury, created art for Burningman, and became an artist in residence in Santa Cruz. Her numerous sketches and watercolor paintings trace her extensive travel around the globe.

She returned to her Connecticut roots in 2012 to be close to her family.  In 2015 she received her MFA degree from Western Connecticut State University where she completed an emotionally evocative series of her elderly parents for her thesis work.

Abbie moved to the Big Island of Hawaii in 2017 where she has established herself as an island artist. She paints and teaches art workshops in her island studio, and has taught as a visiting teacher in Maui at the Hui No’ Eau. 

In 2023, Abbie was awarded a Vibrant Hawaii Artist Fellowship which she is using to offer art classes to benefit her local community of both art students and other artists. In 2024 she attended both the Abled Hawaiian Artists Collab and the Hawaiian Artist Collab, allowing her to work in creative collaboration, sharing techniques and inspiration with other skilled artists. 

In 2025, Abbie was accepted to the Schaefer Portrait Challenge, showcasing her work at the MACC, Maui Arts and Cultural Center. This show will travel to the Capitol Modern Hawai‘i State Art Museum in Honolulu on Oahu in January, 2026.

Abbie hosts pleinair and abstract painting retreats, as well as artist collabs here on the Big Island of Hawaii.