Karla Van Vliet: New Paintings
Artist Statement:
Karla Van Vliet is a painter, poet, and student of the dream. Van Vliet has long been fascinated with creating meaning and opening places of feeling by generating marks on the page, be it letter or character, dendritic form or simple line and shape. Her work originates from the practice of listening inwardly for what wants to arise and be expressed. From this Gnostic perspective, creation and content rise from the feeling, knowing self. Van Vliet works mainly in acrylic, on canvas and paper and ink on paper. Recently she was inspired to begin a body of work she calls scored paintings; a technique she created. The process incorporates aspects of painting and drawing. She scores the surface of the painting and then applies and removes paint, over and over, as the paint fills in the scoring to create line and form. Van Vliet works with several recurring patterns and images that resonate within her. Another aspect of the paintings is the dialogue between the horizontal and the vertical, a conversation between the world above and world below, the outer world and inner world. These scored paintings have informed her works on canvas where she has integrated this way of working with form, line, and color. She also employs this scoring technique with ink on watercolor paper. The pieces arising from this method have been mini portraitures of women. Van Vliet has utilized these miniatures in larger pieces creating congregations of faces on canvases and also showcased particular portraits in larger mixed media panels. Each creating a mood and conversation with the viewer.
Van Vliet is a Co-Executive Director in the organization North of Eden, which works to bring Archetypal Dreamwork to the world. She is the Director of the Center for Archetypal Dreamwork, where she teaches a class called Art and the Practice of Presence. As well, she offers individual Art and Practice of Presence sessions. She also leads Art and the Practice of Presence Retreats at the North of Eden Retreat Center in northern Vermont and runs the New England Young Writers’ Conference at Middlebury College. She formed Van Vliet Arts in 2005 as a way to bring together her artistic endeavors. She studied art at Bennington College, received her BA from Goddard College and received her MFA in Poetry from Vermont College of Fine Arts.
Van Vliet is a Co-Executive Director in the organization North of Eden, which works to bring Archetypal Dreamwork to the world. She is the Director of the Center for Archetypal Dreamwork, where she teaches a class called Art and the Practice of Presence. As well, she offers individual Art and Practice of Presence sessions. She also leads Art and the Practice of Presence Retreats at the North of Eden Retreat Center in northern Vermont and runs the New England Young Writers’ Conference at Middlebury College. She formed Van Vliet Arts in 2005 as a way to bring together her artistic endeavors. She studied art at Bennington College, received her BA from Goddard College and received her MFA in Poetry from Vermont College of Fine Arts.
Dendritic Paintings
A few years ago I had a dream in which my friend was teaching me how to move through walls. She said, “Like this,” and pressed her head against the wall. I thought, in the dream, That can’t work, but placed my head against the wall as she had. In that moment I felt the wall open and I moved through. I had the understanding that what can look solid also holds open space.
In these new paintings I have been exploring open space and negative space; how structure can hold form and open form. From atoms to dragonfly wings, from riverbeds to trees to mountain ranges.
I call these my dendritic paintings; form created which resembles branching like a tree, often in reference to nerve cells and the crystalline structures of rocks and minerals. I work with these questions: In setting these shapes down on the page, what emerges? How do these shapes relate to each other? How does color create tension or harmony within the piece?
Recently I had a dream in which I held a pendant with one of my paintings on it under my tongue. It represented my devotion to God. In my dream I showed it to the male leader of a group of believers escaping from the enemy. From this he knew that I was one of them, and I was admitted to his protection. These paintings arise from my deep listening to that voice within me I call God.
I work on both canvas and paper with acrylic paints, laying down thin layer after thin layer to create depth and conversation between colors. When I first started painting, I used Chinese ink, and “color” was the traditional five shades of ink: light wash to darkest black. After several years I yearned for more. This process of layering is teaching me the subtleties of color language.
I continue to explore these components of color and shape and structure and how they can come together and merge in my paintings.
In these new paintings I have been exploring open space and negative space; how structure can hold form and open form. From atoms to dragonfly wings, from riverbeds to trees to mountain ranges.
I call these my dendritic paintings; form created which resembles branching like a tree, often in reference to nerve cells and the crystalline structures of rocks and minerals. I work with these questions: In setting these shapes down on the page, what emerges? How do these shapes relate to each other? How does color create tension or harmony within the piece?
Recently I had a dream in which I held a pendant with one of my paintings on it under my tongue. It represented my devotion to God. In my dream I showed it to the male leader of a group of believers escaping from the enemy. From this he knew that I was one of them, and I was admitted to his protection. These paintings arise from my deep listening to that voice within me I call God.
I work on both canvas and paper with acrylic paints, laying down thin layer after thin layer to create depth and conversation between colors. When I first started painting, I used Chinese ink, and “color” was the traditional five shades of ink: light wash to darkest black. After several years I yearned for more. This process of layering is teaching me the subtleties of color language.
I continue to explore these components of color and shape and structure and how they can come together and merge in my paintings.