Karen Woods

Lone Blue Car

2021

Represented by George Billis Gallery, NYC & LA --From the artist statement, "My artwork centers on mid-century American architecture and design, once revered for its groundbreaking i...

Represented by George Billis Gallery, NYC & LA --When asked what kind of paintings I make, I usually call my work "Urban Landscapes" to distinguish them as paintings about areas of human habitation rather than landscapes that reference the natural world. But my subjects are certainly not all urban – some are suburban, some small towns and some are ruins, such as a faded sign and abandoned business bleaching in the desert sun as once populated areas return to their former empty silence. While I often treat older architectural forms, I want to make it clear these are not paintings about nostalgia – all are contemporary scenes, recently observed. Currently I've painted a number of pictures which seem neither urban nor rural but are set in that particular non-space that now covers so much of the landscape – the limbo of freeway exits and on-ramps and their attendant fast-food franchises. What I feel these mostly unpopulated places I choose to paint have in common is a potency, some kind of emotional charge that enables them to function as settings for a subjective fictional narrative. As the artist I choose and edit the scenes, setting the stage for viewers to bring their imaginations and private meanings to these places made special by my selection and attention." Notes: Urban, Rural, Movies, Theatre...

Represented by George Billis Gallery, NYC & LA -- Trevor Young is a quintessentially American painter. He makes no bones about his affection for the trappings of car culture, life on...

Karen Woods paints a traveler’s view through the window of a moving vehicle rendered in subtly nuanced gestures in oil on canvas or panel. These views from the front seat of a car looking through an often rain-splattered windshield or side window, are always about water: water from above, as a rainstorm, or from below, as a man-made sprinkler system. She is drawn to the interplay of water and light, and how it affects our perception of reality through reflection, distortion, and transformation. The compositions often include a bit of the car - the edge of a window, a side mirror, the clear curved area left by a windshield wiper - these markers situate the viewer on the journey Woods is on - we are taken inside the vehicle and shown the vignettes that catch Woods’ eye. The paintings reclaim that point in time, explore its detail, and unearth its emotional content. Woods’ work freezes and compresses a moment of everyday life; then elongates and decelerates it and in so doing, reveals its accompanying emotional weight: its anticipation, reflection, isolation, and longing. Woods is coaxing us to recognize the transcendent experiences offered by the most mundane or ordinary surroundings of our daily lives. Karen Woods was born in Seattle, WA, in 1963. She received her BFA from the California College of the Arts (Oakland, CA) in 1987 with additional studies at California Polytechnic State University and Studio Art Centers International, Florence, Italy. Her paintings have been exhibited throughout the United States with solo exhibitions in Los Angeles, New York, and Boston, among others, and her work has been published in New American Paintings, American Art Collector, art ltd, Artweek, Western Art & Architecture, Fine Art Connoisseur, and the Idaho Statesmen. Woods’ paintings are included the public collections of the Bodleian Library, Oxford, UK, James Castle...

Artist: Ben Turner Medium: Oil on Canvas Canvas Size: 26 x 36 in. Framed Size: 34 x 44 in. A dramatic scene depicting the wild beauty of the American West...

Charles B. Russ (American, 1825 - 1920) Signed: C. B. Russ 1878 (Lower, Right) " Mt. Washington Seen from the Ellis River ", 1878 Oil on Canvas 12" x 20" Housed in a 2 3/4" Or...

Antique American autumn mountain lake with village oil painting. Framed. Oil on canvas.

oil on canvas, 40"x60" signed on reverse by the artist, Linda Griggs. This striking fine art painting captures the quiet allure of a nighttime swimming pool, glowing against the dark...