Smokie Kittner
Beginning
oil on canvas 36" X 40"
Untitled
Pastel on paper 42" X 25"
Primarily I work in oil and pastel but have added photography back into the mix in the last few years. The photographs are printed on and the pastels drawn on the same heavy rag printmaking paper. Works in oil are on canvas.
The traditional mediums of oil and pastel are used to create conceptually / idea based artworks. The images created 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. Land or seascapes when used, do not illustrate actual spaces but create context. Light, darkness and structural elements also serve to control what, where and how far one can see into the picture plane.
These photographs are from my ongoing series, THE VIEW FROM HERE. The series documents the changing seasons and landscape as seen from a rural hillside in Eastern Pennsylvania. The focal length, exposure and the exact position of the camera vary as do the time of day the images are taken.
Each image from the series was photographed, because I found a certain quality in the moment compelling. The combination of land and sky, light, dark, color and structure spoke to me of place but also of something more, less definable, essence.
While the oils and pastels are not related conceptually to the photographs they are related structurally.
Smokie Kittner 2014
More of Smokie Kittner's work can be seen at www.smokiekittner.com