Location
Parksville BC
Biography
Genre
2D Artist
Medium
Acrylic, Charcoal, Drawing
Short Biography
Laurel will tell you that any day is a good day to be an artist but the best day, for her, is a Friday, because on Fridays, on her way home from school, she would go to Mrs.McDowell’s Friday afternoon painting class where they worked together at a tiny dining room table using oil paints, sable brushes, and canvas boards. There was no room for easels, and students relied on old magazines and scenic postcards as image sources so they could paint realistic landscapes or bouquets of flowers. Painting was easy, fun and she loved it. After those lessons Laurel’s art education continued with a teaching degree from Western Washington University and she worked for a short time as a high school art teacher. In 1979 she had a solo show at the Federation Gallery in Gastown and then her art zig-zagged its way through a variety of careers as she continued her art education at colleges and universities. She exhibited work at the Sidney and Sooke shows, the Moss Street Paint-in, Victoria BC to name just a few. It wasn’t until her sixties that she could devote her time fully to drawing and painting in the landscape genre working with acrylic paint, inks and graphite. In 2020 while walking the wetlands and coastal trails of Vancouver Island she turned her focus to the concept of liminal change. A 2022 Canada Council for the Arts, Research and Create grant gave her a year dedicated to research, drawing and painting. In 2023 her participation in the curated group show, OCTAD led her to gain professional status with Canada Council. Laurel's work addresses the liminal in the Canadian landscape. Liminality (from the Latin, limin) can be characterized as transforming from one state to another, a capturing of in-between situations and conditions, a crossing of thresholds or leaving something behind to move to something new. Her current work springs from images of BC’s coastline and Prairie grasslands looking for the qualities in these iconic landscapes that speak to her of the three phases of liminal change: gathering, transformation and resolution. Laurel works to capture the motion of change, especially in the illusive horizons where sky and land appear to meet. Laurel Karjala spent her childhood in and around Nanaimo BC and Protection Island.
Biography
Laurel will tell you that any day is a good day to be an artist but the best day, for her, is a Friday, because on Fridays, on her way home from school, she would go to Mrs.McDowell’s Friday afternoon painting class where they worked together at a tiny dining room table using oil paints, sable brushes, and canvas boards. There was no room for easels, and students relied on old magazines and scenic postcards as image sources so they could paint realistic landscapes or bouquets of flowers. Painting was easy, fun and she loved it. After those lessons Laurel’s art education continued with a teaching degree from Western Washington University and she worked for a short time as a high school art teacher. In 1979 she had a solo show at the Federation Gallery in Gastown and then her art zig-zagged its way through a variety of careers as she continued her art education at colleges and universities. She exhibited work at the Sidney and Sooke shows, the Moss Street Paint-in, Victoria BC to name just a few. It wasn’t until her sixties that she could devote her time fully to drawing and painting in the landscape genre working with acrylic paint, inks and graphite. In 2020 while walking the wetlands and coastal trails of Vancouver Island she turned her focus to the concept of liminal change. A 2022 Canada Council for the Arts, Research and Create grant gave her a year dedicated to research, drawing and painting. In 2023 her participation in the curated group show, OCTAD led her to gain professional status with Canada Council. Laurel's work addresses the liminal in the Canadian landscape. Liminality (from the Latin, limin) can be characterized as transforming from one state to another, a capturing of in-between situations and conditions, a crossing of thresholds or leaving something behind to move to something new. Her current work springs from images of BC’s coastline and Prairie grasslands looking for the qualities in these iconic landscapes that speak to her of the three phases of liminal change: gathering, transformation and resolution. Laurel works to capture the motion of change, especially in the illusive horizons where sky and land appear to meet. Laurel Karjala spent her childhood in and around Nanaimo BC and Protection Island.
TAGS
acrylic, painting, landscape
