Gerlyn Friesenhahn has taken a non-traditional path to becoming an artist. She was born in 1956, in New Braunfels, Texas where she currently lives and works. At the age of sixty she started a BFA in Studio Art at Texas State University. Through oil painting she records local landscapes focusing on color, patterns and openness in natural spaces.  She searches for scenes that communicate nostalgia for a simpler life. She obtained a BA in Biology from St. Mary’s University, San Antonio, Texas in 1983 and Doctorate in Medicine from University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio in 1986. She completed a neurology residency at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri in 1990 and practiced medicine in St. Louis until 2000 when she moved back to Texas. She paints as an outlet from the mental toil of practicing neurology which requires passionate engagement in the lives of patients with serious illness. Using aesthetic beauty found in nature, she hopes to distract the viewer from cognitive dissonance trying to evoke a feeling of tranquility. Gerlyn’s work is influenced by Julian Onderdonk’s Texas Hill County paintings of wildflowers and by female artists, April Gornik and Lois Dodd. She received a Juror’s Merit Award in the Texas State Juried Student Exhibition in 2019 and graduated with a BFA in Studio Art in 2020.