BIO/ABOUT
Trevlyn spent the first 33 years of her life near Durban, a city on the east coast of South Africa. She worked as a high school biology teacher initially and then moved to marine environmental education.  Art has been a passion since childhood and throughout her adult life she has continued to experiment and grow by participating in drawing and painting workshops.  

After moving to the US in 1993, painting became her full time occupation. Still life subjects have always been important. For the first few years Trevlyn’s work was rooted in subjects of African connection, the depiction of African cultural artifacts - “pot and basket paintings” and African wildlife. This interest was fueled by separation from a beloved continent and the preoccupation with all that she had been exposed to in Africa.

In America, Trevlyn continued her involvement in environmental education by volunteering as a docent in both marine and botanical natural history. Now a California resident, this deep interest has inspired her to paint local landscape as means of drawing attention to the environment.

Wild California is exquisite - rolling grassy hills, tree-dotted and with woods facing north, clear blue, summer skies, fog over the hills, evergreen oaks and flowers coloring the meadow in spring, but Trevlyn paints with a view that extends beyond the landscape’s aesthetic appeal. She says: “These are all wonderful but if we don’t take notice of the habitat, learn to know and appreciate the local flora and fauna it supports, we stand to lose it.”

Trevlyn often paints scenes from Edgewood County Preserve in San Mateo. Edgewood is a preserve because of its natural California serpentine soil habitat with many species rare and endangered. Well known for its displays of spring flowers, seen as they were before the landscape was developed and alien plants introduced, and also more recently for the reintroduction of the Bay Checkerspot butterfly.