Art
Upcoming shows and exhibits
4 – 31 October 2009 ArtEast Art and Photo Juried Exhibition, Queenswood Villa, 370 Kennedy Lane, Orleans ON
- Poppies 2, Jardin des Plantes, Paris won an Honorable Mention
31 Aug – 18 October 2009, Ottawa Little Theatre, 400 King Edward Ave, Ottawa ON
- Tuscan Hamlet on display as part of the Ottawa Art Association regular exhibit
Recent shows and exhibits
19 Sept 2009 Old Ottawa South and Music Festival, Windsor Park, Ottawa, ON
15 Aug 2009 Art on the Farm, Experimental Farm, Ottawa, ON
Artist bio/statement
I am a self-taught artist currently working in oils. I also do stained glass work. My first foray into the art world occurred when I was 6 yrs old. It was my first year as a Brownie and I submitted my poster of Smurfette hawking Girl Guide cookies to the annual competition. It won first place!
I have always loved to create art. As an adult, I was side-tracked by my other passion, the science of coping with our environmental distress, and as a result my creative self was suppressed. While writing up my masters thesis on geochemistry, I felt that I absolutely had to reconnect to my inner artist and began creating strained glass panels, and various other decorative objects. Ten years and two babies later, my original love of painting has resurfaced. I have finally made time to take a couple of art classes at the Ottawa School of Art and paint whenever I can beg some babysitting time. I can’t say that the process is relaxing, usually to the contrary, but it is absolutely compelling.
Oils
There is something romantic about painting in oils. It’s a connection to a body of work, to artists who’ve gone before, to a mosaic of experience. It’s also such fun being able to blend, overpaint, scrape, re-work, impaste, glaze – so many ways to play!
Stumbling across water-miscible oils leveled the last excuse I had to not pick up a paint brush. I had avoided delving into painting because I didn’t like solvent fumes. Not an issue with water miscible paints because the solvent is water. Much more enviro and pleasant for a home studio.
Stained Glass
Light shining through a prism, sun beams through a leaf canopy, reflections, sparkles, varying indices of refraction… glass and light are mesmerizing.
It’s also immensely satisfying to have an image in mind, distill the view into discrete shapes, and build a concrete version using sharp and hot tools. Primal.
examples of my work
I typically work from photos that I’ve taken. If I had to summarize, they are usually contemporary landscapes where the built and natural environments interact. I prefer evocative images that allow me to feel reflective, contemplative, or simply happy. For now, I’ll leave provocative and disturbing to others.
Some of my favorite paintings are posted on the Oil Paintings page.
The Stained Glass page is still in the works as many of the photos of past projects were not in digital format so I need to track the hard copies down and scan them first.
In the meantime, I invite you to browse my collection on Flickr. You’ll see oil paintings, a small excerpt of my stained glass projects, and reference photos.
I am also a member of the Ottawa Art Association and Arteast Ottawa and maintain a web presence through their sites.
if you like what you see…
Please contact me (kris@rudnitski.ca) if you’re interested in purchasing a piece. Some of them are for sale, some are currently in private collections. I would be happy to discuss commissions… perhaps there is a special photo representing a fav vacation memory that you’d like painted?
I am also considering reproducing a few of the paintings as giclees so I’d be interesting in finding out which the most popular are – let me know which your top picks would be!