PaintingsDIRECT.com

Trees Turning
(1995)

DB: Trees Turning is one of my favorite pictures on the website. Can you tell me about it?
KN: Trees Turning and Gilded Grasses are part of the series of pastels I've called Roadwork because I do them in the car as we are driving during long trips. Sometimes, when I'm the passenger, the kaleidoscopic terrain will spark my creativity. My memory snares an impression of a passing scene. I begin a pastel that evolves as we continually move on, the views as ephemeral as what remains of our unspoiled countryside. Trees Turning was done as we drove north through North Carolina for Thanksgiving in 1995. Fall color comes very late in Georgia if at all. I miss it.

DB: Is there a specific place that inspires the hilly, forested landscapes that are common in your work? If your images are derived from actual landscapes, how does your mind's eye eliminate unnecessary detail?
KN: There is a field I pass on my way to work that has a forest edge, standing very straight across the horizon. The changing light and seasons of it have inspired many paintings. I am intrigued by the dark shadows between the tree trunks. This scene in itself is an abstract composition, so getting caught up in the details is not a problem.

Summer Woods
(1996)

Sunlit Tree (Trees #22)
(1998)

DB: Your work features flat areas of color, atmospheric effects, and other attributes of Japanese prints and drawings. Also, there is the haiku-like poetry that you use in your statements. How did the Asian influence come about?
KN: My parents had three Hiroshiges [Ando Hiroshige (1797-1858), famous Japanese painter and printmaker] that I always loved which they gave us as a wedding present. As an art history student, I was intrigued by the influence of Japanese prints on the Impressionists. In the early 1980s there was an exhibition of Japanese prints that totally captivated me, and I started collecting books on Hiroshige and Hokusai.

I am interested in the Zen philosophy to be at one with what you are painting. My teacher and mentor, Robert Kulicke, stressed the importance of positioning the rectangle on the panel to maintain "oriental" proportions: the side borders being slightly narrower than the top, and the bottom being the deepest of all. The theory is that this device raises the center of the image so it coincides with the visual focal point of the piece, which is actually slightly above center.

Haiku are deceptively simple and leave a lot to the imagination. I try to do the same thing in my painting. I can't remember when or how I learned about haiku. It was independent of my interest in Japanese prints and Zen.

Interview continued...
page 2

by Dan Burnstein, Staff Writer

November 17th, 2000--PaintingsDIRECT.com interviewed Georgia painter Karen Nangle.