My name is Uma Tufekcic and I am a painter based in Sacramento, California. I mainly paint with oil paint, ink, and concentrated fabric dye. I work on large scale canvas and I paint on clothing. My work is drawn mainly from intuition, but I gather inspiration from the natural world such as flowers, plants, butterflies and animals. Butterflies have an important presence in my work. I think they are some of the most beautiful and gentle beings on this earth and in my work they represent spirits or angels that I like to imagine are around me. I also am deeply inspired by Bosnian and X-Yugoslavian folk art and material arts. Rugs, painting by naive artists and traditional hand work. 

My practice is extremely organic and I usually don’t do much pre planning. I enjoy working with bright colors. Red is my favorite color. My work has an esoteric nature which I love. I like to paint the things we can’t see but I imagine are there. In childhood  I was very interested in fairies and spirits that lived to be seen by only those who believed they were there. I paint my feelings and the things I see that others can not.