EXHIBITION ARCHIVE
Summer
June 28 - August 23, 2025
Summer brings together the work of Peg Bachenheimer, Kathryn DeMarco, Paul Hrusovsky and Judy Keene, four of Craven Allen Gallery’s most popular artists. Working in a variety of mediums, including oil paint, collage and encaustic, they create pieces that range from complete abstraction to representational and figurative. Each artist pays special attention to the interactions of color and texture in their pieces, manipulating these elements in their own ways.
Judy Keene’s work ranges from expansive color fields to impressionist still lifes and landscapes. Her background as a museum professional has fostered her appreciation for the subtle color harmonies of the old masters. Keene’s palette is bright and deliberate, brought to life by her enigmatic compositions.
STATEMENT
In the late 80's my husband Jack and I visited the home of Pierre Bonnard in Le Cannet and Henri Matisse's home and museum in Cimiez, France. In college I had written my senior thesis with Dr. Shirley Nielsen Blum (UC Riverside) on Ellsworth Kelly who was influenced by Jean Arp. In the 90's I painted several views of our pond through the dining room, incorporating the theme of the window as a frame for landscape. I also studied classical realist painting techniques in tandem with a focus on abstract painting. Most work I have exhibited has been large scale, non-objective abstract paintings, keeping my interest in post-Impressionism and plein air painting on the back burner.
When I found that my college mentor, Dr. Blum, who combined her Early Netherlandish scholarship with Modernism (she had married Irving Blum, a Los Angeles art dealer responsible for building the careers of some of the Pop Artists and Abstract Expressionists on the West Coast), had written a book "Matisse, A Room with a View", I noted her essay on "The Window: an Icon of Modern Art" and decided to continue exploring the window as a frame for landscape from an art historical perspective.
Numinous Light
March 16 - May 4, 2019
STATEMENT
In my new paintings I continue my exploration of the resonance of color. I first encountered the term numinous in reading the 18th century poet and philosopher Novalis. He used it as an adjective meaning “a strong spiritual quality,” a sense used by other art historians, and one I feel describes the way I try to think about my work—not in a pretentious or religious way, but in the sense that two-dimensional art can sometimes help us find meaning beyond our three-dimensional world.
I work primarily in oils on linen, juxtaposing luminous passages of saturated color with more muted tones. I paint intuitively allowing shapes to appear and dissolve under layers of pigment and glaze. Using large and small brushes and palette knives I combine forms of opaque and transparent color, layering, adding and subtracting forms, building on the compositions of previous works in a continual search for balance and unity.
While my debt to abstract expressionist and color field painters is obvious, my background in art history and museum work has had its own influence. I experiment with the subtlety of lost and found edges using some techniques derived from the study of classical academic painting. I am fascinated by the color harmonies of Renaissance painters, have copied old Master paintings in situ at the Louvre, and continue to study traditional figure and landscape painting. Even with the fine paints readily available, I sometimes grind my own pigments to get the colors I am seeking. The Chinese painter Zao Wou-Ki, and his mark making has further influenced my work.
The paintings in Numinous Light are not landscapes in any traditional sense, but they are rooted in a time growing up when I first experienced the power of nature. My father was a prospector of rare and precious metals in the American West and my appreciation of this terrain runs deep. I define forms in my paintings using calligraphic gestures found in the natural world, whether it is a long-distance view, or an intimate pattern found in an agate. Finally, while I can speak to my influences, the work tells its own tale.
Color Search
March 11 - May 6, 2017
STATEMENT
Pierre Bonnard said “Drawing is feeling; color, an act of reason.”
Resonant color is the core of my process. I juxtapose luminous passages of saturated color with more muted tones. I work primarily in oils on linen canvases from small to large. Using palette knives and large and small brushes I combine forms of opaque color with transparent glazes. By varying the thickness of the paint and applying many layers of glaze I experiment with the subtlety of lost and found edges and work to achieve luminosity through value shifts. I hope my color investigations will be enhanced by a study of Old Master materials and methods.
My work is informed by the traditions of painterly abstraction. I was first introduced to Abstract Expressionism and Color Field Painting by art historian Shirley Blum in California. For ten years I worked in art museums and continued to draw and paint and resumed painting full time in the mid-80’s.
I paint intuitively allowing shapes to appear and dissolve under layers of pigment and glaze, building on the compositions of previous works in a continual search for balance and unity. I have been influenced by the work of Pierre Bonnard, Mark Rothko, Helen Frankenthaler, Joan Mitchell, Wolf Kahn and many contemporary abstract painters. Currently I work at home in a beautiful natural setting where our pond and the changing seasons are a continual inspiration.