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Photograph by George Sakkestad Los Gatos artist Kathy Keenan uses her favorite medium, oil paint, in her new exhibit at Gallery Saratoga. Artist's oils featured at Gallery Saratoga Painting is a dream fulfilled for Keenan By Shari Kaplan 'I can't remember not being interested in art, but my formal introductions to it were disasters!" says Los Gatan Kathy Keenan, laughing at memories such as that of her fourth-grade art instructor, who literally told her that her work "stunk." "I had similar experiences in other classes, but I just never believed them," says Keenan, who is this month's featured artist at Gallery Saratoga in the Saratoga Village. Although she never stopped her artistic pursuits, Keenan obtained a bachelor's degree in English and a master's degree in teaching and worked as an elementary school teacher in her native Wisconsin. She and her husband, Tom, later moved to Los Gatos. Various jobs in proofreading, editing and high-tech communications led her to establish Oak Ridge Public Relations in 1985. She and Tom shut their agency down in 1998 to pursue their favorite creative outlets: photography for him, painting for her. "Over the years, I painted in everything but oil. I avoided oil paints because I thought they were the 'ultimate'!" Keenan recalls, chuckling. Many years ago, however, she was introduced to someone who helped her change her mind: Lee Hartman, an artist who taught - and still teaches - oil painting at University Art in San Jose. "I figured if she could teach 8-year-olds to paint with oils, I could learn, too," says Keenan, who's also taken various portraiture workshops. "It's now my favorite medium. Half of my life I've been avoiding something that turned out to be what I love best!" What she likes best about working in oils, Keenan says, is the forgiving nature of the medium. If she makes a brush stroke of the wrong shape or wrong hue, she can change it simply by re-dipping and reapplying her brush. She likes the versatility with which she can create effects, ranging from watercolor-like transparency to more traditional opaque layers of color. "I also love the feel of the paint on the canvas. It's very sensual. It's almost like painting with butter," she says. "Painting is the only time in my daily existence when I'm totally engaged in what I'm doing," she adds. "I don't notice the passage of time; I don't even get hungry or thirsty." At Gallery Saratoga, her first-ever solo show, Keenan is exhibiting a variety of styles, from realism to impressionism to surrealism. That's one of the reasons she titled the show Realities and Other Realities, she says. The show features engaging, somewhat surreal images of trees - some with their gnarled roots reaching through the multihued sky. There are also slice-of-life portraits of people and images of things that appear inanimate but aren't, such as a tidepool or a potter's kiln. "My painting expresses the things that touch me spiritually. People's faces, the natural world and dream images are among my favorite subjects because they can evoke the spiritual in the everyday world," she reveals in her artist's statement. Although Realities and Other Realities is her first solo show, it's far from her first public exhibition. She's participated in group shows and competitions at the Los Gatos Art Museum, Art in the Los Gatos Council Chambers and Santa Clara County Fair, as well as with the Alliance of Visual Artists at the Triton Museum in Santa Clara and the Mountain Art Guild. An artist's reception, with refreshments, takes place June 22 at 5 p.m. The public is welcome to attend. Gallery Saratoga is located at 14435-A Big Basin Way. Regular gallery hours are Tuesday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; closed Mondays. For more information, call 408-867-0458 or visit www.gallerysaratoga.com. |
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