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The
paintings of Karen LeGault are set apart by a deceptive simplicity and a
refined traditional Asian technique and aesthetic. Deeply rooted in Western realism along with her long time
interests in nature, tai chi, and meditation, her lush, distilled compositions
express beauty, fragrance, rhythm and form in a magical palette where spirit is
reflected through matter. A passion for botanics and nature is clearly present
in fluid, brush-stroke depictions of vibrant florals, movement filled
still-lifes and iridescent fish that reach, illuminate, and swim across cool,
subdued blue and steely gray backgrounds A
quarter century of spiritual practices contribute to a rare sensibility, at once
earthy and ethereal, energetic while serene, delicate yet powerful. Ms LeGault
has been a formal painter for over 37
years, teaching drawing and painting since
1993 at UCB Botanical
Gardens, community centers and privately. Her work has been exhibited
through out the SF Bay Area and
can be found in institutional collections including The Alameda County Records
Building, Summit Hospital and Highland Hospital as well in as scores of private
collections.
Ms
LeGault works primarily in Chinese brush painting, a medium in which absorbent
rice paper is used with sumi-ink and watercolors. Every stroke of the brush registers with the paper. A
painting begins with a feeling, then a balanced compositional structure and
dynamic interplay within and between shapes, lines, color and brushstrokes. The
architecture of the positive and negative spaces is considered as the first
brush stroke is boldly placed on the paper and then the rest of the composition
is constructed around it. A painting is imagined and begun. Often she creates
with many layers, lending translucency and depth. Finished
paintings are mounted on another layer of rice paper, using a special
laminating process to smooth the wrinkled paper and bring out the intensity of
color.
“My
intent is to express poetic, sensual, organic and metaphorical presence into
visual imagery encompassing empirical reality, imaginative interpretation and
spiritual experience. Painting is a meditative dance, requires time/space to
relax, to open my being to inner worlds of ether and inspiration, grounded in
bodily reality, a space whose outward symbols are revealed in energy, spacing,
rhythm, movement, pulsation and transformation.”
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