SPOTLIGHT ARTISTS: INTO THE LANDSCAPES
Karen Smidth
Karen Smidth, landscape artist from Denmark, has experienced a wide range of natural scenes in her life as expressed vividly through her oil paintings. Her move to northern California is seen through her paintings – vast, mountainous, coastal views. Smidth’s artwork captures the raw moments of nature, voicing its beauty. She uses her brushes to understand life, allowing her strokes to collectively create a sense of belonging just like our designs do.
Smidth’s vibrant, color-blocked landscapes draw many parallels in the spaces we design. Our use of repeating patterns and bold color are the perfect counter to her pieces. In a word they don’t whisper but yell that we are ALIVE. There is not a single one of her pieces I would not love to design a room around.
Medium: oil on linen canvas
Galleries:
Blue Print Gallery (Dallas, TX)
Maybaum Gallery (San Francisco, CA)
Size Range: 9x17 - 40x80
Price Range: $1,500 - $9,500
Karen Smidth, “Bright Pacific Bend”
Karen Smidth, “July Morning”
Karen Smidth, “Gifts from the Garden”
Karen Smidth, “Nordic Fields”
Andrei Kioresku
Andrei Kioresku, Russian landscape artist born and currently living in St. Petersburg, Russia, is inspired by classical works. Kioresku’s education from St. Petersburg Academy of Arts bleeds through his canvases. Educated by open-minded artists, and constantly surrounded by some of the greatest classical works, Kioresku’s pieces fall into subjective realism or post-impressionism styles. Although strictly surrounded by Russia’s lower, grey light and political ideals that can be restrictive of the creative mind, Kioresku breaks through in his art. His individualist approach to landscape paintings, inspired by his education, is not limited by the borders of where he lives. Similar to Nikolai Timkov’s inclusion of warmer light, Kioresku uses his imagination to blend humankind and nature. He uses bright, intricate colors on the seams of burlap canvases to pull reality and texture into his work. He continuously finds ways to explore the world’s landscapes without physically leaving Russia.
Kioresku’s rich color palette brightens any room. The patchwork landscapes are unparallelled, pulling people into the strokes. Kioresku has a way of emphasizing the visual dance he creates through his own lens – bringing colors we wouldn’t imagine to skies and hilltops. Kioresku is on the same page as our designs – life and rooms are about color. We need color even when we think we can live without it.
Medium: oil paint
Galleries:
Meyer Gallery (Santa Fe, NM)
Size Range: 24x18 - 36x48
Price Range: $2,800 - $9,900
Andrei Kioresku, “Autumn in Moldova”
Andrei Kioresku, “A Large Bouquet”
Andrei Kioresku, “Red Winter”
Inspiration from Nikolai Timkov, “Afternoon in Rostov”
Sara MacCulloch
Sara MacCulloch is a landscape artist that differs from most conventional landscape artists. MacCulloch works to add a sense of purpose and immediacy to her paintings. Each piece is typically done in one sitting, pushing clarity into the picture. Her avoidance of “overworking” a painting seems to fall in the perfect balance through her color palettes and simplified figures. MacCulloch understands the beauty of nature and its tones, adding life to each room her pieces hang in.
MacCulloch’s use of light in her paintings has the ability to set the tone of a room. I love the way her paintings can bring a summer day or a cool beach breeze into the home. One thing to note is her shifting perspective. I love how she paints looking slightly up into spaces and then shifts in the next painting as if hovering above. This intentional use of perspective is novel and another reason why I deeply appreciate her work.
Medium: oil on canvas
Galleries:
Anne Loucks Gallery (Glencoe, IL)
Studio 21 Fine Art (Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada)
Kathryn Markel Fine Arts (New York, NY and Bridgehampton, NY)
Katharine Mulherin Contemporary Art (Toronto, Canada and New York, NY)
Size Range: 10x10 - 48x48
Price Range: $1,000 - $6,800
Sara MacCulloch, “Road”
Sara MacCulloch, “Green Bay”
Lisa Willits
Lisa Willits, low-country landscape artist originally from Pennsylvania, now resides in Charleston, South Carolina. Her home of Charleston captivates her and inspires the majority of her paintings. The low-country atmosphere – its pastel skies, complex cloud formations, and serene waterscapes – creates a place full of color. It’s a place that radiates calmness as well as the beautiful movements of nature. Willits’ choice of oil paint as her medium was made to fully embrace the hues that drift through the Charleston air. Oil paint allows her to explore the low-county’s features and embrace the morning warmth as well as the evening cool.
Willits’ artwork reminds us of the untouched nature in our world. I love how each painting holds a specific moment steady in time, letting us absorb the natural sides we often overlook. Sometimes we just need to push pause on a sunset to grasp all the feelings it evokes and hold onto its beauty for a little bit longer.
Medium: oil paint
Galleries:
Lowcountry Artists Gallery (Charleston, SC)
Size Range: 6x6 - 36x36
Price Range: $75 - $5,200
Lisa Willits, “Peek”
Lisa Willits, “Close to Home”
Lisa Willits, “Marsh Island Retreat”