KATHRYN  PENO

What is the nature of Being? It is through figurative painting, that I try to narrate and elude the essence of this question. My works investigate memories and the relationships between the conscious and subconscious mind. I am interested in metaphysical philosophies and how we navigate our own nature of Being through time and space.

 

When starting a composition, I build it in layers. I think of these layers as impasses through consciousness. The figures, painted in both oil and acrylic, are always rendered realistically. As the background setting develops the layers of representational "consciousness" are pealed back, revealing imagery, abstracted into silhouettes, symbols, lines and patterns. Using bold, saturated colors to paint the space in which these figures are situated, emphasizes the transgression from reality to memory. This abstraction, for me, represents the distortion that occurs as we recall visual memories and learned visual symbols. By placing figures in an environment gradually descending from realism toexpressions of  primal visual depictions, I attempt to engage the viewer in a recollection of their own experiences with similar objects and symbols and thereby connect my audience in a personal, yet shared state of Being.