Doha Qatar Exhibition

Art in Embassies Program art exhibition

I am honored to tell you I’ve been invited to exhibit at the Embassy in Qatar. The Doha exhibition is made up of 11 works of art (including the two above) by 8 artists. The works are officially on loan to the US Department of State’s ART in Embassies Program and will be installed in the public rooms of the US Embassy residence in Doha, Qatar.  The ambassador and his staff will use the art as a tool of cultural diplomacy; the hundreds of guests who visit the residence each year will have the opportunity to learn about American art and artists.

Ambassador Joseph LeBaron is originally from Oregon and wanted to highlight art from this area.  Beyond this personal connection, the program also sought to include bold and colorful abstract pieces in order to make a connection to Islamic art, which is often nonrepresentational.  The works will be installed in October of this year, and they will remain in Doha for the ambassador’s tenure, which will be another 2 to 2 1/2 years.

To find out more about the program, please visit the Arts in Embassies Program online.

As far as these two paintings, they are a part of a series I created during my time in Hawaii.  Please read about them:

island rhythms—
essential counterparts
for life and harmony

These paintings are about my overall perspective, experiences and interpretations of Hawaii. During a month long stay on the islands, I realized that in Hawaii many opposites exist together. For example: the life below water and the life above water; the love of being in paradise and the hate of island fever; the free spending tourists and the thrifty locals; the dry bare side of an island and the wet jungle side. I felt these opposites created a harmony between the counterparts that was very unique to Hawaii and was essential for life on the islands.

Visually, I relate these opposites to the horizon line that separates the atmosphere from the masses of water or land. The colors come directly from Hawaii’s luscious botanical gardens and the vast ocean.

My hope is to show contrasting worlds existing together in harmony.

www.karensilve.com

Morning Glow

Recently, while riding my bike in the morning, vivid emotions and memories flooded over me. Memories from my painting days in Provence, France. Every morning, I would wake up early and start my walk to the studio. I listened to the hustle and bustle of traffic: honking cars, screeching brakes, swishing of buses lowering and rising. The world started its day. The smells are what I remember most; the mixture of diesel with the sweet scents of jasmine and juniper as well as roses and other floral scents. As I got closer to the studio, the sounds became more faint and the sweet smells became more vivid. I would become very excited. Would I find myself in the fields looking at Mt. St. Victoire or country homes, or walk amongst flower fields that I would decide I had to stop and paint. Finally, I would make it to the studio and the aromas switched to herbaceous tones of thyme, rosemary and sage mixed with oil mediums and paints. I always had a cup of rosemary tea made with a large fresh cut sprig steeped in hot water. This I loved. It was so beautiful and kept my mind free and vibrant. Then, my art day would begin. After finding the place to paint, I would get lost in my surroundings; transcending from a practical place to an emotional and instinctive one. By the end of the day I would have completed a painting. Another day in my journal of art.

On this particular morning in Portland, I was riding under cherry blossoms, smelling sweet scents of jasmine, wysteria, roses, mixed with fumes from the cars and trucks bustling about, buses in full force. The sky has invited me in to a new day with its morning lavender glow. The warm light hits the pink blossoms and orange and green leaves. the day for the world has begun. And so has mine, with the same yearning question… “what shall I paint today.”

Morning Glow, 48" x 48" Copyright2009©Karen Silve

Sacred Places

Sacred Places —
statement by Karen Silve

These new paintings are a meditation about special places I visited during hikes around Mt. Hood and the Columbia Gorge. I contemplated over some of the untouched and intimate spaces realizing they are a part of a bigger picture; a part of evolution and mother nature at her best. I think it is the unknown that I am so inspired by; the awe of nature from something so ancient to something so current. I am fascinated with the hidden places where microorganisms, insects and animals are born, and how they are dependent on these delicate combination of conditions. There’s a quiet beauty which exists amongst the sounds of water falling, leaves rustling, birds chirping, and unseen creatures moving about. These special places have a spiritual aura that has mesmerized me.

Sometimes the most beautiful and memorable parts of life are the unusual and imperfect things one finds in nature, or the unexpected turns life takes. Emotions and responses to experiences are the subjects of my paintings. For example, the excitement of seeing an unusual flower for the first time or experiencing the uncertainty of watching over a friend in a coma. These emotions are not tangible things, but rather elusive. This is what de Kooning calls “nothingness”; emotions that are created through our senses: sight, sound, taste and smell, rather than physical things.

Many of my early works were inspired by music. The process of painting to the music was very important to me because the power of music carried the action of mark making into an expressive, rhythmic painting. I would first start with a concept, then sketches, and finally start putting paint on the canvas until it evolved into the painting I wanted. In these new, more contemplative works, I used modern technology: photography, Photoshop and collaging, to create my “sketch” before starting to paint on the canvas. After reaching a certain point in the painting, I would photograph the artwork in progress and go through the process again of using the computer to manipulate and collage the photograph of the painting. This allowed me to reach a profound place in my painting that I couldn’t have achieved without this process. I’m very excited about this new way of working and will be using it much more in the future.

Portland Art Open

A great event!

For all of you Portlanders that came to the first time ever Portland Art Open, thank you. It was a great success.  For those of you who missed it, here are a couple of photographs of the space Lawrence Morrell and I put together. I enjoyed meeting so many of you and opening my studio for everyone to see my new works. To read about these works, please visit about these works.  Or visit my website at www.karensilve.com
Please note the table in the foreground was designed by Lawrence Morrell.  To find out more about Lawrence, please visit www.lawrencemorrell.com.