Smokie Kittner

Retail Art SuppliesUnited States0-1 Employees

Fine artist working in both Pastel and oil.

Smokie Kittner
Artist Statement

The images I create are emphatically imagined.  Visual elements are used as symbols in all of my paintings.  They are the expression of ideas that change and evolve. Because all of the elements are symbols, light, shadow and color are used not to imitate nature but as part of the vocabulary.  Light, darkness and structural elements also control what, where and how far one can see into the picture plane.  Architectonic elements are sometimes used to represent the structures we create either physical or imagined.  Land or seascapes when used do not illustrate actual spaces but create context.  The ideas and concepts from which the works are conceived are primarily based on empirical knowledge as opposed to that garnered through history or gained intuitively.  As most of what now concerns me is not personal but the shared conditions of many, be they environmental, political or cultural the scale of the ideas have changed.  In keeping with this and because I now also want the dimension to echo the idea, the most resent works are being created on a larger scale.  Most of my images, even the seemingly bucolic, contain an element that subtlety hint at something being wrong or that does not belong.  What lies beyond is often obscured adding to the sense of mystery and uncertainty.  It is not important to me that others understand the conceptual bases for an individual work, but that the painting resonates with the viewer in some intuitive way on an emotional level.

	Though resent larger scale works are oil on canvas, most of my work over the past decade has been pastel on rag paper.  Pastel is generally my medium of choice because of the purity of the color and because it is free from gloss, making the surface appear soft and seductive. The dichotomy between the lushness of the color and surface and the starkness of most of the images is the cornerstone of this work.

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