Ponderings by Karen Holtzclaw

Ponderings is a brilliant show of new paintings by Karen Holtzclaw at the Bellevue Gallery at the Farmer House Museum in Bloomington through December.  The result of Karen’s intense outpouring of creative energy over the last several months is a must-see painting show.

Karen’s paintings are hypnotic, seductive, deeply serious and silly funny.

Because of growing up experiences on Southern Indiana farms and playing in woods overlooking the Ohio River, as well as visits to Cicero Lake and Wawasee Lake, Karen developed a close relationship with nature and an appreciation for the way human and natural worlds intersect and overlap.  Set in pond environments, Karen’s current paintings call our attention to that sometimes fraught relationship between human and natural worlds.  

Each painting presents what looks to be a small pond, bursting with life and activity.

detail

Collectively Karen’s paintings make one feel like one is looking at a large pond one is tempted to jump into.

As a child, while visiting a relation’s farm, Karen was startled to encounter a horse watering tank full of gigantic goldfish.  This seemingly improbable encounter may help explain the presence of large orange coy fish as major protagonists in almost every painting in Ponderings.  These coy defy gravity, leaping and swooping in yin yang pairs, seeming to evolve on the fly in weirdly beautiful ways.

We often think of ponds as quiet places, but Karen’s ponds seem bursting with life, texture and color almost to the point of frenzy.  Something is a little off. It takes a little looking to see some discordant notes. A chemical drum floats in the water, disgorging sludge. 

detail

Smokestacks in the distance in one painting seem to compete with a wildfire in another painting.

Plastic trash floats around,  

Nature seems to be able to adapt.  A frog wears a crown made from a fast food cup.

detail

Mutations give fantastic new forms to familiar creatures.

detail

But one has the impression that the pond beings are trying to escape - and to where?  As viewers we seem to be invited to acknowledge our role in the pond creatures dilemma and to care.  At the same time we are called upon to witness their irrepressible spirit and energy.

detail