“What interests me most, in both my painting and photography is capturing the mystical element, the mood-altering and the magical in a natural scene. I want to find and reveal through my picture what elevates it from “reality” while keeping its resemblance to reality. I want to express my love for what I see. Through looking for it, I find beauty - especially in nature. And I am fortunate to live in the middle of it, now in the glorious Berkshires, previously in rural upstate New York, between the rolling hills and flowing mountain forms of the Catskills and Berkshires. In these locales, one beautiful season transforms gracefully and always colorfully into the next, with the pure blue-whites of winter melting into the gentle greens of early spring, into the vibrant highs of summer’s full color palette, and then to the warm oranges and more muted tones of fall. I want to convey the moods and also a vision, my particular view of this particular frame that I am looking at, how it can speak, what it is telling me, including the conversation of the light and shade. In another way I love the challenge and freedom I experience in painting abstracts, where I can play with forms and colors without reference to anything recognizable, anything other than themselves. Here I purposely avoid forms that suggest objects or beings. I want to explore pure relationship, although, even in these paintings I am most happy when I perceive a mood, a suggestion of mystery, emerge. The process is a step into the unknown, where I am perplexed and free-falling at times, while at others I feel brilliantly enlightened.
I am finally devoting myself to my art full time, having recently retired from teaching art and English at Hawthorne Valley High School since 1985. Even during this career, I exhibited in solo, group and juried shows. I have been a member of the Housatonic Valley Art League and the 14th Colony Artists group, exhibiting at least 5 times a year at various local venues.”
December Featured Artist - Naomi Klavun
