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Atmospheric Landscape Paintings inspired by Jake Berthot

  • Writer: sharonkingston
    sharonkingston
  • Sep 12, 2011
  • 2 min read

After Jake, depth speaks to depth, oil on canvas, 18x 18 in

Jake Berthot, a NY artist influenced by the natural world and Emerson, has said that without the source, one cannot have form.  “. . . if a painter has source and belief in that source, then form will come. I want to be clear here in that form in itself will never give source.” What is your source? “The closest I can come is . . . the promise and longing that I feel in nature. I don’t know what that longing and promise is, but I know when it is and is not in the painting.” —Berthot, in conversation

And from VQR about Jake’s work (this is a repost for the followers of this blog, but so well stated I’m using it again),  Instead of the viewer’s gaze skimming off the surface like a skipped stone as in so much contemporary painting, Jake Berthot’s paintings hold you—stop you and engage you, stir you and disturb you. When you stand in front of one of Berthot’s recent paintings, you immediately become aware of depths in the painting and you are drawn out into them, feel some part of yourself emptying into them. But then the mysterious mutuality of reverie takes hold: into your newly created emptiness, something flows from the painting. And gradually, steadily, the experience of gazing at the canvas becomes a reciprocal emptying-out and filling, an ebb and flow. Depth speaks to depth. And when at last, after successive, calm, reciprocal emptyings and fillings, you break the spell of the encounter, you emerge changed in some quiet but definite way.

I do so aspire to have my works viewed in this way–the viewer emerging from the encounter changed in some quiet way.  A transformation born of contemplation and reflection.   I have been reading and following Jake’s work for the last year or so.  He has, in his own quiet way, influenced how I approach my painting process and how I think about the viewer’s experience.

ebb and flow, 18×18 in, oil on canvas

in a quiet way, 18 x 18 in, oil on canvas

 
 
 

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    Sharon Kingston is a Bellingham WA (Washington) based artist.  As an oil painter she uses the properties of her medium to create paintings that respond to both the atmosphere of her surroundings and poetry. This method of looking inward and outward and, in the moments of painting, finding her way on the canvas is her approach to creating paintings infused with poetry and the memory of landscape. The atmospheric element of her work is a testament to her desire to create spaces that are undefined, contemplative and allow room to reflect and accept uncertainty. Poetry, by nature open ended, is used both in the conceptualization of the work and as a part of the studio practice. The words of Rainer Rilke have informed Sharon’s work for many years, but she also turns to contemporary poetry when it resonates with her life. She uses layers of transparent color, reveals forms by concealing and unearthing pentimenti and suggests elements of landscape in her process.

    People describe her paintings as ethereal, atmospheric, contemplative, PNW inspired, and filled with light and mood.  She has a storefront art studio in downtown Bellingham and welcomes you view her paintings in person.

    SHARON KINGSTON STUDIO

    203 PROSPECT ST

    Bellingham WA  98225

    studio gallery 
    open by appointment

    please send me a text with the
    day and time you'd like to come by.
    360-739-2474

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