“I paint animals the way I wish the world would hold them -

quietly, and with full attention.”

My name is Pearl. I'm an oil painter based in Boston, MA, and the owner of Pearl White Art. I paint pet portraits and original animal studies in a solvent-free alla prima style - wet into wet - nothing rushed.

It all began with a longing.

During Covid I was badly missing my dog, Calypso.

Calypso was a Chipin, weighing in at, maybe, ten pounds. She was fiercely protective of me and loved watching TV while cuddling in my lap. She adored walks at anytime, but mostly in the evening, and playing on the beach. Sadly, she is no longer with me.

I started taking online pet painting classes so I could paint her - having never painted an animal before.

My pet paintings grew out of a simple belief: that a painting of someone you love, really love, should feel like a breath out. Not decorative. Not cute. Something that makes you stop when you pass it in the hallway.

Every painting is built around the presence, stillness, and the particular quality of light that makes an animal look like themselves. I paint animals the way I wish the world would hold them - quietly, and with full attention.

I take commissions from clients across the US and beyond. My paintings live in homes that needed a particular kind of kind of quiet and in the hands of people who wanted to have something special before it was gone.

My Philosophy

“Art as medicine. The sacred duty to share beauty.”

I think of a good painting the way some people think of a good room - as a place you can go to when the rest if the world is too loud. This website exists to make those paintings, the one that carry the specific weight of an animal you loved, painted in a style that asks nothing of you except to look. The muted palette, the soft edges, the atmospheric backgrounds - none of this is accidental. It is all in the service of stillness.