Sandra Felzen was born in 1954 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She has a degree in Chemistry from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel and received a degree in Environmental Health Sciences from the Polytechnic Institute of New York, USA.

After working at the Environmental Protection Agency of the State of Rio de Janeiro for 5 years, she left for New York to study painting and drawing. She returned to Brazil in 1986 for her first solo exhibition.

Sandra's paintings have transitioned in style over the years from the figurative to themes mainly related to trees. In an exhibition in 1990 titled "Trunks and Layers", Sandra started using new techniques to produce a highly textured canvas. Textures are first obtained by a collage of different cotton materials during the application of gesso to the raw canvas. To build up the final textures, she adds many layers of oil, oil stick and oil pastel in a wax medium.

"Sandra's work demands of the viewer a double, radical perspective:one that taps into the roughness of her trunks-thick, visual barriers that move in the direction of one who stands in front of her paintings; and another that longs to enter into the forest, towards the infinate hues of green."

Orlando Mollica, Brazilian Artist