Abbie Rabinowitz ~ Bio

Abbie Rabinowitz – Artist Bio

Abbie Rabinowitz paints with an expressive, painterly style rooted in her deep love of nature. Her landscapes are created directly from observation, capturing the living spirit of place, while her abstract works emerge as a more personal search—translating the shifting beauty and fragility of the natural world into vibrant color, playful expression, and emotional resonance.

Born the third of six children in a wildly creative household, Abbie grew up in a stone home her parents built by hand in rural Connecticut. Both trained artists, her parents filled the house with children’s art classes and encouraged fearless exploration—so much so that Abbie and her siblings were free to draw directly on the walls. With such beginnings, becoming an artist wasn’t just natural—it was inevitable.

After earning her BFA from SUNY Purchase, Abbie headed west to California, where art and life blurred into adventure for the next three decades. She lived on a Sausalito houseboat, joined a Haight-Ashbury commune, created work for Burning Man, and became an artist-in-residence in Santa Cruz. Along the way, she filled countless sketchbooks and watercolor journals with impressions from her travels across the globe.

In 2012, Abbie returned to her Connecticut roots to be closer to family, completing her MFA at Western Connecticut State University in 2015. Her thesis—a deeply personal portrait series of her aging parents—wove together memory, love, and the passage of time, marking a turning point in her artistic journey.

Drawn to new horizons, she relocated to Hawai‘i in 2017, where the volcanic landscapes and lush coastline became both muse and studio. On the Big Island she has established herself as a painter and teacher, offering workshops in her Puna studio and sharing her vision as a visiting artist at Hui No‘eau on Maui.

Her commitment to community is at the heart of her work. In 2023, Abbie was awarded the Vibrant Hawai‘i Artist Fellowship, which she used to offer art classes that nurtured both students and fellow artists. The following year, she participated in the Abled Hawaiian Artists Collab and the Hawai‘i Artists Collab, creative gatherings that sparked new techniques, collaborations, and inspiration.

Recognition of her portraiture came in 2025, when she was juried into the prestigious Schaefer Portrait Challenge, with her work exhibited at the Maui Arts and Cultural Center. The show will travel to the Capitol Modern Hawai‘i State Art Museum in Honolulu in 2026.

Today, Abbie continues to explore the intersections of landscape, portraiture, and abstraction, letting each canvas become a conversation between the outer world and her inner experience. Whether painting the lush volcanic land of Puna, crafting portraits that speak to the human condition, or guiding others through the creative process, she remains devoted to art as a force of expression, connection, and community.