Karen Silve Paintings: abstract painter

Critical Review by Ann Landi

There are certain idioms of 20th-century art that have proved to be remarkably fertile and resilient territory for younger artists right up through the present. One is geometric abstraction, as pioneered by Constructivist and Bauhaus artists nearly 100 years and developed by Piet Mondrian and Josef Albers and later the adherents of Minimalism. Another is Abstract Expressionism, the unabashedly spontaneous and often lyrical impulse that marked a definitive American style and the first great break with European traditions in the late 1940s.

It is to the latter tradition that Portland-based artist Karen Silve belongs, and in the last two years she has found fresh and exuberant life in an approach many may have considered played-out. Like her famous progenitors—Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, and Joan Mitchell—Silve depends on a certain degree of spontaneity, the impact of the immediate gesture, to draw viewers into her paintings. To paraphrase the great New York School critic Harold Rosenberg, What goes into the canvas is not a picture but an event. In Silve’s case, it is the act of remembering landscapes, music, or even a particular friend. She brings her whole body to the task of painting, as Pollock did, feeling the energy running through her system and imparting a sense of corporeal presence and gesture to paint and canvas. Significantly, many of her works are human-scaled—sometimes the same height as the viewer—so that we relate to these works with our own bodies and enter into the painter’s dialogue with her materials.

Silve has spoken about the influence of music on her work, and indeed in the past dedicated a series to musicians, particularly cellists, since that’s an instrument that speaks to her profoundly. But more important for her most recent paintings—which show a huge leap in assurance and innovation—has been the impact of landscape, whether it’s the breathtaking natural terrain around her home (a scenic bonanza that includes Mt. Hood and the Columbia Gorge); the gentler territory of Provence, where she frequently spends a few summer months; or the tropical lushness of Hawaii, which offers up the drama of sky, water, and rainforest. She has trained her eye through plein-air painting, the time-honored practice established by the Barbizon School and Impressionist artists, and working out of doors in the French landscape taught her much about color and the importance of its placement in relation to other hues.
Silve’s color choices, indeed, all seem rooted in the natural world—she eschews the high-keyed chromatic approach, based in industrial and commercial materials, of many of her peers. But she’s not immune to the other possibilities of our high-tech era and uses the computer as a kind of design tool. After starting a painting, she will sometimes take a photo and feed it into the machine. Manipulations of the canvas on the screen give her an idea of where to go next; it’s a process that’s analogous to reworking a painting through scraping off pigment or turning to sketches to realize a finished composition (if you look closely, you may discern a faint grid that helps her with organization and the pulls the components together). The miracle of that process is that there’s no sacrifice in spontaneity—though Silve may spend months on a painting, its energies still seem as fresh as if it were tossed off in a day.

One of the great pleasures for this critic is to see both how Silve’s art relates to the art of the past—there are echoes of Monet and van Gogh here, as well as her more immediate predecessors—and to note her growth away from a dependence on recognizable subject matter. She seems to be moving into a realm of pure abstraction, and at this juncture in time, the possibilities appear to be boundless.

Nature and Market Paintings—

In these works, Silve captures the experience, discovering life’s little moments of energy and inspiration on the way to more obvious destinations in culture and nature. While her Market paintings capture the whirlwind of energy around masses of people moving through their arrays of produce in a Mexican marketplace, Silve’s nature paintings record the immersive intimacy experienced by a soul in search of a sacred place. Rather than zero in on notable landmarks, Silve pauses to consider the special aha! moments of quiet appreciation of life in culture and nature.

Many of the paintings in Silve’s current body of work are based on momentary synaesthetic impressions of interaction with nature. For the more immersive works, Silve regularly goes hiking in the Columbia Gorge, in Oregon, a favorite area for nature lovers because of its abundant waterfalls. Silve finds plenty of nature to capture her attention along the path. Preferring the intimacy of being part of nature as opposed to the distance implied by the awe-inspiring aura of natural beauty, Silve paints apparently expressionistic but actually phenomenological abstractions that merge her subjectivity and the informe’ profusion of her natural surroundings. Her Sacred Place paintings exemplifies the almost mandala-like abstractions Silve extracts from the enlightened apprehension of a nondescript place in nature becoming, by some special intuition of connection, sacred to her psyche.

Silve’s drive to capture energy and only energy carries over to human busyness as well in the Market paintings. Market IV “represents” Silve’s thrilling encounter with the all-over energy of a Mexican marketplace. Piles of fruits, vegetables, spices, nuts, fabric, clothing, crafts and flowers fill the visual eye field along with assaulting odors of raw meat, fish and body smells of eager villagers hustling-and-bustling while negotiating the best price. In a recent trip to Mexico, Silve had a eureka moment when she realized that the blitz of special micro-moments of the marketplace experience was a cultural counterpart to the what she was looking for in contact with nature.

Silve’s work involves not just the eye’s capture of light but the body’s sense of its orientation in complex natural space. In addition to the obvious similarities to the work of Joan Mitchell, Silve also draws inspiration from less apparent influences, Cy Twombly poetic use of the drip, at times lyrical and even resigned, as well as Gerhard Richter’s ability to re-present found imagery in ways that are rendered, disconnecting paint from subject matter, both there and not there, present and absent, have both inspired Silve. Both of these painters deconstruct master narratives of nature or history in order to find personal niches of meaning in a world of slipping-away signifiers: Silve has sought to inform her work with that wisdom, while at the same time restoring a more structuralist appreciation of the strength and power of nature (undoubtedly derived from her experience as a nature lover not just an artist). As Silve states, describing her process of painting, “I….get lost in my surroundings, transcending from a practical place to an emotional and instinctive one.”

ARTIST'S STATEMENT

Silve’s intuitive and deliberate acrylic paintings unfold through layers of paint. Lush colors, aggressive brushwork and drips pushing and pulling off the sides of her canvases reveal a subconcious energy.

Silve’s art is about her experiences in nature. Every painting starts with a concept from a specific experience; meditating over the simple beauty of a pale pink rose; smelling the fresh spring scents of Oregon’s mountain meadows; or interacting with masses of people at a farmer’s market. Once she finds herself in an interesting or exciting moment, she starts to observe with no agenda; attuning her senses. She focuses on the smells that bring back memories, the friction of people moving about, the calmness of birds chirping, and the adjacent colors of flowers or fruit stands. These experiences last for moments or hours. Only after the experience, she starts to visualize a painting. She focuses on words that define the consciousness rather than the actual place: “freshness”, “quietness”, “boldness”, or a combination of feelings that she wants to express in her painting.

Silve always starts each painting with an image in mind from her experiences. In her studio, she focuses on being “in the moment”, and paints intuitively. She uses many mediums to create assured, thick brush strokes contrasting with drips and smeared paint. Layer after layer, the painting starts to unfold. At this point, her marks are more deliberate rather than intuitive. She contemplates each mark until the painting finds it’s rhythmic natural conclusion.

Silve’s work comes out of the Abstract Expressionists concept of “art and live duality”. Her main influences are Willem de Kooning, Cy Twombly, Joan Mitchell and Gerhard Richter.

BIOGRAPHY

Silve was born in Springfield IL. Her mother, who is the daughter of an artist and a French chef, exposed Silve and her three siblings to art through visits to museums and classes. Silve’s family moved a number of times during her childhood, finally settling in Tuscaloosa AL. She was involved with art through high school and went on to receive a BFA from the University of Alabama, whose painting faculty, including the Italian artist Alvin Sella, had a strong abstract orientation. A formative experience, especially for her color sense, was the summer Silve spent painting the landscape in France at the Leo Marchutz School in Aix-in-Provence. She currently maintains studios both in Portland and in the south of France.

As an undergraduate, Silve developed an interest in Post-Impressionist and Fauvist painting, and they informed her early figurative abstractions. She studied in the graduate painting and design programs at the University of Denver, creating abstract work that was inspired by the landscape, and by the color lessons she learned in France. Later, the Abstract Expressionist painters Willem de Kooning and Joan Mitchell, and the German artist Gerhard Richter became important influences on her work.

In 1993, Silve moved to Portland, Oregon, worked in graphic design and began to explore painterly process in a series of meditative paintings. In the late 1990s, she created two extended groups of paintings, first the Musician Series, and then the Cellist Series. Both series focused on players with their instrument, and on a feeling for music expressed through abstracting the human figure, gestural brush strokes and vibrant color.

Silve has acknowledged the role of personal experience in shaping her work. In 2006, the death of a pet and the illness of a friend both moved her to find a new mode to express her own inner reality through painting. The work that emerged involved rhythmic, calligraphic brush strokes and drips of paint. Evolving from this period is the ongoing series of abstract paintings that Silve continues to create. Crucial to these paintings is their physical immediacy and their connection with the natural world. Silve expresses this as being “within nature”, and includes the sights, smells and memories that an encounter in the world can generate. The artist’s involvement with nature extends to her activities as a gardener, hiker and biker. Some of her current paintings draw upon the markets she encountered during a recent trip to Mexico.

In 2008, while working on a series of green paintings inspired by the forests of Oregon, Silve found a way to “create the dynamism of the moment” by turning to the computer to aid her in restructuring a painting in progress. She has also used Photoshop to create digital collages, using element of existing paintings, to serve as a studies for a new canvases.

Silve has exhibited her work extensively in solo exhibitions including at the Portland Performing Arts Center, Tuscaloosa Performing Arts Center and West Linn Public Library, West Linn OR.
Group exhibitions include those at The Institute for American Universities, Aix-in-Provence, France, Jemison-Carnegie Heritage Hall, Talledega AL, and the Art in Embassies Program, Doha, Qatar.

sacred places —

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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.

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.

island rhythms—
essential counterparts
for life and harmony

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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.

hope and healing—
a poetic language of trust and intimacy

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These special works were made in dedication to my friend who was in intensive care for five weeks and then overcame the impossible. During her time in a coma, I found myself desperate to speak to her. This visceral body of work represents those intimate moments and conversations during that time and through her healing process. We are who we are because of where we've been. My friend was dependent on the strength of her body which was made up by her emotional and physical history. The history of these canvases are built with layers of paint, graphite, and pencils carving into wet paint, then sometimes sanding and reworking. The color represents our tangible history and structure, while the white exhibits our intuitive sense. Many of my marks are made with my eyes closed. This process gave me energy moving from my feet, and up through my body and out through my hands. It was a dependency of trust. I was able to speak instinctively. Music has always been a part of my art and it has also influenced these paintings. I chose methodical, instrumental music with a medium uplifting tempo to give me comfort. Just like my friend gained comfort through the touch and voice of her friends. I look at these works as a language without words; a poem understood on an intuitive level. These personal and intimate paintings reveal my poems and conversations with a friend in an abstracted state of mind.

A New Look at the Cellist—

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Silve’s expressive paintings are balanced with the structure of a cellist, aggressive strokes and random drips. They are her interpretations of her senses and how they interact with reality. In her paintings, her thoughts and emotions revolve around and connect to the cellist. She uses a performing cellist because it is a tangible subject which stimulates our auditory senses, but also encompasses time with a narrative quality. She places the cellist in a nonexistent environment to speak about feeling, mood and relationship rather than a cellist. Silve's work is derived from neo-expressionists, figurative artists and abstract expressionists such as Willem de Kooning, one of her main influences. Similar to de Kooning keeping the figure of a woman, Silve uses the icon of the cellist throughout her present work. Silve uses a visceral process, painting passionate marks which result in assured lines bursting with emotion. This technique is balanced with fluid, restful strokes that exhibit a narrative or lyrical quality. She creates a history of her life’s rhythms with a depth achieved by layer after layer of paint. She strives to create a unity from the tensions of reality and the etherealness of emotions.

Inner manifestations—
the poetic rhythms of music and voice

These pieces were created after my dog Tiller, my studio companion, died. My hope was to show a part of one’s personal history and an awareness of one’s self, through the insights we gain from life’s experiences.

Works Insprired by Music—

Portland, Oregon-based painter, Karen Silve, boldly exhibits sounds and rhythms with oil paint on canvas. Her passionate strokes land between broad assured lines exploding with emotion and fluid restful strokes exhibiting a narrative or lyrical quality.

There are moments of calm, moments of intense passion, moments of anxiety, and moments of simple beauty in the music that inspired these works.

Silve captures the dichotomy of harmony and dissonance in an alluring painting entitled White Composition. This was inspired by the chilling work of Schoenberg's A Survivor from Warsaw. The sweeping large black shape in the center cuts the cello like image in half in a destructive manner, yet her fluid strokes give a sense of relief and purity.

In contrast, Silve explores the blissful sounds from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in Red Composition 6. A feeling of exploding joy from the music is described with dancing lines and vibrant colors.

Les Violoncellistes—

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In her les Violoncellistes series, Silve focuses on the rhythmic sounds played by the cellist. Her fluid strokes and subtle colors express the poetic flow of the music: the anxiety and violence, the joy and quiet beauty.

Musician Series—

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Silve's musician paintings are inspired from watching artists perform: from a deaf Irish percussionist who feels with her feet the vibrations of a symphony orchestra to a blues singer in a smoky tavern or a street musician on the sidewalks of Provence, France. Through expressive lines and shapes of color, Silve captures their consciousness turning inward, reaching deep inside themselves, their body movements reflecting the elation and struggle, the pleasure and pain of their art.

Early Works—

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In Silve's earlier figurative work, she expresses abstract thoughts of the human figure and nature. Silve believes that it is the gesture rather than the eyes that captures the essence of an individual. The way one holds himself. The tilt of the head. The lift of an eyebrow. The angle of a shoulder—down, back or forward. The way one walks, sits or reclines. Silve focuses on the emptiness of space around the figure which became weighted due to the motion or stance of the figure. She chooses individuals self-assured enough to look foolish or lovely in the eye of the beholder and simply not to care.

Silve's paintings powerfully express her abstract thoughts of the artist within her. It is the ever evolving visual journal of her life. Like color on color, each painting is layered with the joys and struggles of the artist's personal life as well as those of the human figures that are her inspiration.

NY CRITIC'S ESSAY

Music has done more than inspire Karen Silve. It has permeated her art and become as much its fabric as pigment. Silve’s relationship to music is so thorough and supple that she has created essentially two distinct (though often intermeshed) series out of it: the more figurative “Musician” series and the almost completely abstract “Works Inspired by Music.” And the latter category is further divided into paintings that sum up her involvement with a piece of music that tend to be vertical, and horizontal works that are more narrative and seem to unfold the way a classical musical composition unfolds. Silve has concentrated on the violoncello, the particular physical attitude of a cellist at work. A cellist makes a cruciform with his instrument: the elbows-out position of both arms is the horizontal element to the straight-up seated posture of the musician with the instrument between his knees. In some paintings the cellist is part of the composition, but both the player and the instrument are undergoing a faceting in the cubist manner. Paul Cezanne and Willem DeKooning are the two artists Silve cites as her central artistic inspiration. Their influence is so palpable that they might be considered pillars of her art. Cezanne paved the way for abstraction by his reducing subjects to their essence. The body of Cezanne’s work that seems most relevant to Silve is his many paintings of Mme. Cezanne seated in various chairs. She doesn’t sit still, or rather the artist doesn’t show her sitting still, as he tries to establish a solid form, one that is bendable but not breakable. Later in the 20th century, gesture served to convey the immediacy of action. De Kooning was not a full-fledged action painter, but his figures, especially the strapping Women that inspire Silve, have solidity with gestural action as its underpinning. The notion of the spontaneous gesture lives in Silve’s painting as the elusive and fleeting passages of music to which she gives form. William Zimmer
New York City
January 2005