My friend and oft times Curator Steven Butz has said that “the work comprising PK’s career has retained a constancy of intent that, for all its’ diversity, leaves no doubt about the concerns she has felt compelled to examine and explore.” The
human figure has always been the centerpiece of my paintings.
Most frequently the figures are in motion. They are leaping, striding,
swimming, heading into the wind at the top of a hill, dancing,
bowling, maneuvering a tightrope, stepping right out of their
clothes, and always with a lyrical defiance. Even in the
works where my subjects are sitting or lounging, ostensibly in
a pose caught by my camera, they won’t be sitting for long.
My style is loose, flowing and brushy, giving the work a sense
that it was painted in one fluid, uninterrupted encounter with
the canvas. But that is seldom the case. With a wide
ranging palate of vivid saturated colors in full confrontation
with each other, I often use black outlining to celebrate
the marriage of drawing and painting.
I
like to use photographs. I find my interaction with a photograph
gives me a knowledge of the interior world of the subject that
often surprises me – I’ve discovered secrets never expressed
just by concentrating on the eyes, hands, and body language frozen
in time.
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In an earlier stage I used Plexiglas in over-layering the sheets to complex compositional effect. On a subliminal level it reinforces my idea that both as individuals and families, we are a jumble of shifting, unsteady, complex and competing elements and relationships. I
use collage and text fairly often. I am painting and writing,
first and foremost, about liberation: liberation of all kinds.
My conviction is that liberation is not for my subjects alone,
to be free to dance and be naked and “own” our world, so
to speak, but it is as much about liberating the perceptions of
the viewer from stale, outdated notions of who we are, who we
were and who we might be.
With the exception of my ongoing pictorial interest in Greek gods
and goddesses, and familiar Christian myths. My heros are everyday,
familiar, and in the way of humanity, wonderfully ridiculous in
their demand for or unawareness of their essential dignity and
power. I hope I convey the playfulness, the humor, the joyousness
and absurdity of “becoming” and “self-expression” while leaving
the darker images of my soul in a local laundromat.
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