by Kay Carpenter Doyle

Main Gallery at  FACC ~ Business Hours through August

“The exhibited paintings are favorites from my personal collection. My work is influenced by theatre, film, music, the written and spoken word, nature, life, travel, mystery, whimsical life-sustaining baroque humor, and curiosity.

I sometimes work in series, rendering an observed or imaginary subject in a new style or medium, thereby creating my own world.   I coax viewers to REFRESH their imaginations as I change something ordinary into something magical.

My paintings also REFRESH the experience of Canada, the Caribbean, France, and home. I often paint on the kitchen table or en plein aire in dubious tropical conditions.  There are samples from my diverse series expressing the many, varied, and unusual approaches to a subject, real or imaginary.

In 1989 I began investigating interference pigments in a search for luminosity. REFRESH!  I discovered the way one could alternate between a traditional acrylic color and interference acrylic color with changing light, revealing a soft, rich radiance.  The figures and shapes seem to dance on the picture plane.  This resulted in “Opera Interference” 1-8, using stainless steel coarse and micaceous iron oxide.  I also use gold and silver and more frequently, copper coarse and copper fine acrylic paint, as noted in the  “Just Look Up” series,  “Sweet Dreams, Baby,” “Bowtie,” “Night,” and others.  I recently REFRESHed my kitchen walls with a rich copper coarse paint!

Also exhibited are samples from a large watercolor series, “Roses for Eloise,” named for my mother, whose garden I fondly remember.  My aim was to get a sense of the rose and give visual voice to its delicate splendor.

I am currently writing and illustrating a children’s book with humor adults can enjoy.”

Pictures on this site include:

“WAITER at the BRASSERIE DEUX GARCONS with BICYCLE, AIX en PROVENCE, FRANCE”
“JO at MARGIE T’S, OTTUMWA”
“OFF the HOOK”