| Artist's Statement  A career is defined by the life lead pursuing it; at this point in mine I have been inspired by the majestic beauty of the Canadian landscape that I am so fortunate to call my home. I have always been affected by my environment. When I was young and lived in the cities, Calgary, Toronto and Montreal, I painted people and situations. When I moved to Nelson, BC, I took up gardening and making babies; I painted flowers and family members.
After a recent move to Castlegar, British Columbia I find my self looking at the sky and river. There is so much power in the collection of dams in the area. When I sit close to them I can feel the energy collected vibrate on my teeth. The water rushing through the gates in the spring makes me a bit crazy and I go as close to the flow as my nerve will allow me. I love the architecture of the dams and how they tap the interplay between potential and kinetic energy. It is interesting how man has harnessed the river changing the landscape for his needs and how entire communities profit off of this. It's beautiful how this technology has found a place in the natural environment. When I sit beside the dams I am awed by the workmanship and the genius of the people and minds that created them. So I paint the dams.
On location, I paint watercolour sketches, take photographic reference and commit the image to memory. If it is possible, I work on a larger version of the image later that day in my home studio. It is my goal to keep my brush strokes abbreviated focusing the energy of the moment directly to the canvas. Because I have three children to care for during the day I generally paint through the night, sometimes putting the brushes away in the morning to get the kids ready for school. It is the only time I have, so I steal sleep in the name of creativity and art.
A few years ago I started volunteering my time as a columnist for the newspapers. I went out and promoted other artists in the area through written articles and radio. As a reporter I managed to have a look into the hearts and minds of a whole bunch of artists that live here. It was a valuable experience for me in that it taught me to think critically and it taught me how to listen. Sometimes when I am painting I need to use both of those skills.
Five years ago I launched a career in public art. That was an eye opener. Creating murals is a lot of hard work. I create murals with children and the communities input. That way the paintings directly reflect the youth and energy that created them. Making art for the public can be difficult because often one has to deal with multiple committees and varying politics. This process of showing my work to the world on a large permanent scale gives me intense pleasure and pride. The process has taught me a great deal about human nature.
As a teacher I feel that it is important to give young artists not only the skills to paint, but to feed the imagination. I believe that making art is much more than learning to push a brush around. It is, in essence, the sum of who we are: our thoughts, ideas and emotions. It can illustrate sickness and help to heal it. It can demonstrate and contribute significantly to, our health and well being.
It is the sum of these experiences that have lead me to where I am right now. I am an emotional person, so I guess emotion is often the hand that guides my brush. In my art college days I was taught by modernists. They really didn't like anything representational so I never learned to paint that way. I compulsively paint with the colours I see, often in my mind, using brush strokes to express my emotional state. Plato postulated that because reality will always be filtered through our own senses, we can never hope to perceive its true objective nature. If this is true, then my combined senses form a window framed in emotion and the reality shinning through it, at the time, is illuminated through the brushwork on my canvas.
Karla Pearce
Artist/ Teacher/ Columnist
Karla Pearce on BKRadio |
