Janina Tukarski Ellis, award winning oil painter, was born in Seattle, WA.  While still an infant, her family moved to Munich, Germany, where they resided for the next 14 years. She grew up attending both American and German schools while traveling extensively throughout Europe with her parents and three sisters.      

After college, Ellis moved back to her home-city, Munich, to focus on painting.  She spent two and a half years painting Munich while selling her work at the Schwabinger Kuestlermarkt (Munich’s premiere art district).  In 2004, Ellis met her soul-mate, Joseph Ellis, in Munich and moved back to the U.S. to get married.  

In 2009, Ellis took a pause from active painting, and returned to Germany to study classical painting and drawing at Akthof, a private art school in Munich.  After an intensive year of studying anatomy and the human figure, Ellis returned to the U.S. and began focusing on figurative work.  She opened a gallery/studio in Greenville, SC in 2010, where she continues to show and sell her paintings.

Ellis’s work can be found throughout the U.S. at select art shows and galleries.