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Karen Birt – The Breaking Wave
26th June to 20th July 2012
Open eve 26th June 7-9pm
“My paintings are the result of repeated returns to the same beaches in West Cornwall. They are not generic or generalised, rather they record the exact detail of a particular incident of topography, weather and tide. Many of the paintings centre on a wave on the point of breaking, which I see as a metaphor for the fragile glory of human existence. My aim is to communicate an intensity of experience that creates permanence out of the fleeting moment.” Karen Birt
For me, painting comes out of a desire to intensify the experience of the present moment.
To create something permanent out of a fleeting experience.
In all of my work I aim to bring to the subject a deep knowledge of its substance: bone structure in portraits, the physics of waves in my seascapes. The paintings, whether of people, waves or landscapes are not generic or generalised, rather they record the exact detail of light and form. For this reason I return again and again to the same beaches in West Cornwall and have made repeated paintings of some of my sitters. In all cases I supplement the immediacy of my drawings with dozens of photographs.
Despite this common starting point, the portraits and the seascapes use differing techniques in response to the subjects, as seen by me.
My portraits are in oil on canvas and built up layer by layer in response to sittings in my studio using a technique that creates the most three-dimensional effect possible, in order to convey in paint the experience of being in the presence of that one person. By focussing on and expressing the sitter’s unique qualities, I seek to find a way to communicate the experience, which is common to all of us: the strong and direct recognition of the presence of another person.
In contrast, my seascapes in acrylic on canvas or paper take a single, unrepeatable event of weather and tide conditions in a particular place and by celebrating this exact detail aim to convey the quality of that moment to the viewer.
Many of the seascapes centre on a wave on the point of breaking. I have always been fascinated by natural processes. The way in which a wave builds energy far out in the ocean, manifests itself in a glorious configuration of light and colour and then crashes onto the shore, releasing its energy back into the world, seems to me a tender metaphor for the glory and fragility of human existence.
Having first trained as a scientist, I was awarded my MA in Fine Art from the Sir John Cass School of Art in 2003. Karen Birt