Karen Kane

Artist Statement:: My art is primarily generated through a visual and tactile discussion with internal and external forces -- emotion, memory, color, nature, structure, light, language, poetry. This discussion becomes the process and the expression itself. My paintings and drawings begin in a place -- an image, an idea, a color, a feeling -- and evolve into form and color that are derived from that origin. My work, however, quickly transfers to activity in a spatial environment that relates primarily to itself. The energy I feel when I interact with a point of inspiration and my materials moves me to create a visual that is an improvisation of color and form.

The art surface becomes an aesthetic home for a gathering of energies which interact in relationship with visual elements. I might, for example, feel a thrill from the color, form, or line in a landscape, a collection of fruit, a face, a memory. This excited sensation moves me to respond to the underlying energy of my initial inspiration. I am driven to make visible the invisible, to make an aesthetic statement that feels like truth. The work thus evolves beyond representation of visible life to a place where new relationship is created, where energy develops beyond reasoning.

Biography:: Karen Kane is a visual artist and writer, currently living and working in Williamstown, MA. Born in Philadelphia, PA, Karen discovered, as a youth, a passion for color in her crayon box, and thus spent many happy hours focused on burnt sienna and periwinkle blue, and, at approximately the age of twelve, began to use her paint-by-number color sets for her own creations. After acquiring a bachelors degree in English from Kutztown University to satisfy the writer side of her nature, she began her pursuit of an independent path in the study of visual arts, taking classes in drawing, painting, calligraphy and design at Hampshire College, the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and with unaffiliated teachers in Cambridge, Northampton, and Amherst, MA. She has made various attempts at acquiring a living wage, as a commercial graphic artist, illustrator and calligrapher, and owner of a mostly-used bookstore where she encouraged and promoted the creative arts in the community of North Adams, Mass. She has participated in several area group exhibits. More of her work may be viewed at www.karenkanestudio.com.

North Adams Open Studios -