Wildness often brings us to a sense of wonder. These works are meant to do that; to help us engage with our curiosity, and our imagination. In that way, wildness enables our renewed attachment to our physical presence within our world.
The atmosphere is a wild parade of clouds. Watching the Sky suggests that roil, that untamed instability that at once provides ongoing wonders as well as nourishment in the form of rain. Wild Wind imagines the flow of energy present in the shifting currents of the atmosphere. It suggests a metaphorical aspect of wind as well as the physical aspect.
Looking through the sky, we can see far into space. With the aid of powerful telescopes, we can look back in time. Earendel's Neighborhood imagines star formation in the early Universe. The James Webb telescope has sent back images of one of the earliest stars we can see; astronomers have named it Earendel, which means morning light.
Closer to home, Earth's geography has a myriad of wild places. The Going Away Mountain is an intimidating presence of wildness. Climbing such a place, to get to the other side, references not just a physical challenge, but also a spiritual effort when we each face our final transition. Wildness is sometimes present in processes we cannot plumb, nor understand.
The Watchman He Lay Dreaming was inspired by a Bob Dylan song about the Titanic. As the watchman sleeps, he dreams of wild walls of water. Sea animals float through his dream. When he wakes, his dream matches reality as the great vessel founders and sinks. There is wildness everywhere in that story.
Karen Fitzgerald was born and raised on a dairy farm in the Midwest. It is this early, close relationship with the natural world that informs her work. She has an active exhibition history in the US and abroad. The Queens Community Arts Fund, Women’s Studio Workshop, and NYFA Artist Corps have supported her work. The work is in private, public, and museum collections. Heavily influenced by poetry, her work delights in the energy of gardens, mysteries and all things invisible.
Medium & Dimensions:
Oil paint on panel with 23k gold: Wild Wind and Watching the Sky.
For the images with gilded rings; mica, oil paint, Venetian plaster, 22k Moon gold (The Going Away Mountain, Earendel’s Neighborhood), on Yupo mounted on panel.
The Watchman is oil paint, 22k Moon gold on panel, with 23k gold (linear elements.). Watchman He Lay Dreaming, 48" diameter
Wild Wind, 24" diameter
Watching the Sky, 15" diameter
The Going Away Mountain, 31"x31"
Earendel's Neighborhood, 17" diameter
