Oil painter Karen Silve currently paints and resides in Portland, Oregon. She studied initially under the auspices of Italian abstract painter Alvin Sella at the University of Alabama. Then she traveled to France and studied at the Leo Marchutz School in Aix-en-Provence. This experience awakened in her a new understanding of color and she discovered what Cezanne had called the “harmony of colors,” the subtle ways in which they relate to one another. Upon returning from France, Silve attended graduate school at the University of Denver in Colorado where she had the opportunity to explore nature and its relationship to abstract thought in both animate and inanimate figures.
Silve has had a successful career as an art director and creative director, including garnering several prestigious awards as well as developing the visual branding for a well known Fortune 500 company. Throughout an accomplished commercial career, Silve continued to create highly personal expressionist paintings. A national home catalog company commissioned a cover painting. The result was a work entitled Yellow Chair whose subject, an antique French chair, exemplifies Silve’s philosophy that art and beauty are an integral part of the home. The painting sold immediately and numerous new collectors requested access to her work, a testament to the universal aspects of her art.
At present, she is focusing on her art and is at last providing opportunities for a larger, appreciative public to view and collect her accomplished works. Through her experiences, she developed her own artistic instincts and philosophies. Silve views the creation of art as a meditation on nature and life itself. She emphasizes that the artist must understand the eternal as well as the ever changing aspects of nature and life.
Today, Silve’s work is collected and admired throughout the United States and Europe. The artist currently maintains two studios, one in Portland, Oregon, and another in Provence, France.
Website
http://www.KarenSilve.com
