Erin Cone is an American artist born in Lubbock, Texas in 1976. She loved to draw from an early age and was soon painting in oils and watercolour. Erin graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Painting from the University of Texas in 1998 and began to work in the design industry. She began her professional fine art career at the age of 24. Her work is a fusion of traditional portraiture with figurative realism and abstract minimalism.  These works are mostly about forms and arrangement. The figures are often solitary against a flat background and usually cropped in an arresting way; but they are still strong and unforgettable.