Dead Cornstalks #1-9

Karen Kitchel

Since Karen Kitchel last exhibited at the Carnegie before its untimely closure, she has been hard at work in her studio on the Avenue in Ventura.  Her latest exhibit, Garden/Plot, ran through the summer at the Riverside Art Museum.
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​Best known for her unique approach to the traditional landscape genre, Kitchel’s paintings in Garden/Plot pull inspiration from her own gardening practice in the water starved west, balancing an intense contrast between dark and light.  

Orchard

The museum aptly describes her work here: “Cultivated, abandoned, wild, or industrialized, the traditional landscape paintings in this exhibit reveal human interference everywhere.  Utilizing images and unconventional materials to imply sequence and connected realities, Kitchel presents visual, open-ended stories that challenge our cultural definitions of nature."

The nine actual-sized, dead cornstalks she has painted are past their prime—“an expired field of dreams” says the artist.
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​Her work continues to intrigue and prompt reflection.