Kate Kiesler

The Glint of Gold

2025

Artist Comments
Artist Valerie Berkely presents a fiery sunset above thick silhouetted trees. The warm rays of the sun brighten the landscape with cooling hues of violet spreading across the forest floor. With her finger painting technique, Valerie uses transparent oils on top of gold iridescent acrylic textures creating a luminescent glow. It results in a captivating image with a gentle flow of movement.

About the Artist
Valerie Berkely uses her finger tips as brushes to create her abstract paintings. For Valerie, the art is all about the process, the paint, her mood, and the moment. She admires the artist Wolf Kahn, who once said, “the picture is the conclusion of an experiment in which the hint of an image becomes actuality." Like Kahn, Valerie’s paintings combine pictorial landscapes with painterly abstraction. The vibrant primary colors capture the hues of the sun rising and setting, and the texture of her fingers across the surface divides sea, land, and sky. There is something very dreamy about these works, exemplified by their color, texture, and atmospheric quality. Valerie’s first “art epiphany” was seeing Seurat's La Grande Jatte at the Art Institute of Chicago. “Bowled me over! I actually fell down. And I knew I was to become a painter.”

Words that describe this painting: small, trees, sunlight, sun, sunset, oilpaint, nature, forest, impressionism, etching, impressionism, nature, oil painting, purple

Golden Glow...

Artist Comments
Artist Elizabeth Garat developed this impressionist landscape after a summer hike through the rolling hills of Southern California. She says it was a warm day beneath a dynamic sky. "I wanted to record the striking balance between the golden hill in the foreground and the deep blue mountains behind it."

About the Artist
Growing up in California and Colorado, Elizabeth spent much of her formative years outdoors. “Exposure to nature early on planted the seed of landscape painting in me,” she says. She enjoyed spending time on her grandfather’s sunny sheep ranch and going to the beach with her grandmother. Her grandmother also would bring her to art galleries in Laguna Beach, where she was first introduced to California Impressionism. Today, Elizabeth lives in Tennessee and enjoys painting both outdoors and in her studio, a detached garage at her home. She has a keen interest in working with color and capturing the effects of light.

Words that describe this painting: impressionistic, California, summer, landscape, hills, mountains, trees, clouds, sky , impressionism, landscape, representational, oil painting, blue

Santa Ana...