Artist Karen Fitzgerald admits to feeling connected to the earth, sharing conversations of growth with the plants around her. Working in gardens from a young age, her fascination with nature is also reflected through her artwork.
This fascination, with the natural world, in general, has been redirected in the last five years to an examination of the moon and its cycles. Her depictions of the moon have an ethereal quality to them, which is further enhanced by her use of gilded surfaces, upon which she paints her mystifying creations.
Her use of gilded surfaces is also reminiscent of Renaissance art, where gold leaf signifies spirituality. “I intend that the precious metals indicate something beyond our physical world, something metaphysical,” explains Fitzgerald on her website.
Her creative process includes thinning oil paint until it turns into a fluid form, then building up layers and producing a luminous, subtle, rich surface. The paint is then added on top of the gilded surfaces. “The cycles this orb transits, and the myriad manifestations of its appearances embody the persistence of change, the agitation of energy that we live within,” writes Fitzgerald, adding a poetic layer to her work.
