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Kara Meg Luthi
USA
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"I balance popping colors to evoke feelings, first for myself and then for anyone who wants to peek in."
Kara Meg Luthi paints in acrylic and oil, and the paintings in this exhibition are built on color that pops and blending that moves. Forms flow into one another, palettes are balanced with a confident hand, and the compositions reward a second and third look. Luthi works across a wide span of styles, from abstraction to realism, and her subjects range just as widely: landscapes, portraits, flora, space, animals, insects, aquatic life, architecture, and dwellings all appear in her art. What ties the work together is intention. Every choice of color is made to evoke a feeling, for herself first, and for whoever stops to look. The pieces on view are an invitation to peek into the specific interests of an artist who has spent a lifetime documenting the world as she sees it.
Cypress | Oil
$2,000
36" x 24"
Cypress trees are indigenous to the deep swamps of the United States, their forms mirrored in the reflective water below.
Color is the first thing a viewer notices in her paintings, and it is meant to be. Luthi balances bright, popping hues against one another so that the surface hums with energy while still holding together as a whole. She has said that she draws on unifying elements from music, using the sensory logic of sound to shape visual transformations that are allusive and elusive at once. The blending in her acrylic and oil work is unusually smooth, giving even her most vivid canvases a sense of movement and flow. She describes herself as thinking outside the box and as constantly in flux, like the universe itself. That restlessness shows up on the canvas as work that refuses to settle into one manner and instead keeps reaching for the next possibility.
Stilt Home | Acrylic
$1,000
36" x 12"
An elongated, complex, folk-inspired view of an Asian-influenced composition, packed with jazzy patterns and every color on the wheel.
"Painting is my emphasis, but I am a jack of all trades."
Painting is her emphasis, but Luthi cheerfully calls herself a jack-of-all-trades, and the description is accurate. Alongside her canvases she produces refined work in drawing, graphic design, photography, and pottery, as well as mixed media pieces. Her list of materials is long: oil paint, oil pastels, acrylic paints, dry pastels, charcoal, pencils, found and recycled treasures, film, digital creations, and various forms of clay. She refuses to be limited to a single tool of expression. Works that begin as two dimensional sometimes become three dimensional, and objects she has rescued and repurposed find their way into finished pieces. This range is not a lack of focus. Each medium gives her a different way to reach the feeling she is after, and she chooses whichever one will carry it best.
Recluse | Mixed Media
$3,000
36" x 18"
A unique and eerie view from the spider's own point of view.
Raised in the American South, Luthi was exposed from an early age to people of every walk of life, creed, and race, and that early exposure shaped both her curiosity and her empathy for the people around her. As a child she was constantly imaginative, turning that imagination into creative projects long before she thought of herself as an artist. Over what she calls the sands of time, those talents flourished. Her appreciation for positive influences and her feeling for humanity guided her toward documenting the world visually, and she has never stopped. Her enthusiasm for anthropology, theology, and freedom of choice gives the work an unusual edge, since she approaches her subjects as someone interested in how people live, what they believe, and the choices that define them.
An original butterfly's-eye view of a delicate, melodic string harp.
Butterfly Harp | Acrylic
$500
14" x 11"
"Surprises are hidden all over the place in many of my works. Figures, faces, and unexpected juxtapositions are there for whoever looks closely. Some pieces get finished with a splash or a drip of color that zips everything together, and some take decades of remastering before I let them go."
"Growing up in the South, I was around all walks of life, creeds, and races from many places, and that shaped how I see the world. As a child I used my imagination constantly, and as time went on those talents flourished. I earned my Bachelor's in Fine Arts, then my Georgia teaching certification for every grade from pre-kindergarten up, and I taught art at a Savannah high school for five years. I still teach and influence people from age one to one hundred and one. My journey includes oil, oil pastels, acrylic, dry pastels, charcoal, pencil, film, digital work, found recycled treasures, and clay, and none of it limits me to one tool of expression. I think outside the box. I encourage others to create. I am of sound mind, with a rounded view of things, and making art is a positive experience for me."
Vases' Gasp | Acrylic
$700
14" x 11"
An impressionistic view of two vases.
Formally trained, Luthi holds a Bachelor's degree in Fine Arts. She went on to earn certification to teach pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade in the state of Georgia, and her exposure to the approach she refers to as D.B.A.E. broadened her horizons as both a maker and an educator. She taught high school art in Savannah, Georgia, for five consecutive years. Teaching did not end when she left the classroom. She continues to influence and encourage people of every age, from very young children to people past a hundred, and she remains drawn to that educational framework whenever it can feed one of her own pieces. Throughout her life she has received recognition and awards at exhibitions in galleries and other venues, and she continues to show her work in rotating exhibitions and online.
Red Squared Butterfly | Acrylic
$400
14" x 20"
A piercing, fictional butterfly at the center of the composition.
Surprises are hidden throughout her paintings. Faces, figures, and odd juxtapositions are tucked into the compositions, waiting for the viewer who looks closely enough to find them. Luthi enjoys this game with the viewer and builds it into many of her productions. Some pieces reach completion with an unexpected splash or drip of paint that pulls the whole composition together. Others take decades, revisited and remastered again and again until they finally feel right. She sees no contradiction between the two. A painting is done when it is done, whether that takes a short while or decades. What matters is that the finished piece carries her optimism and reaches the person standing in front of it, whether it provokes laughter, tears, or a quiet moment of recognition.
A rip-torn view of a sea dragon, disguised as a submarine beneath the sea.
Yellow Submarine | Mixed Media
$550
11" x 14"
Across her career Luthi has concentrated on several movements rather than one: abstraction, expressionism, realism, surrealism, impressionism, and pop art. She moves between them freely, and a single exhibition of her work can hold canvases from opposite ends of that range. She takes inspiration from national and international artists alike, alluding to an array of styles while keeping her own voice intact. Her goal, as she puts it, is to please what audiences crave, broadening her own reach worldwide while also broadening the horizons and expectations of the people who see the work. Her paintings have appeared in rotating exhibitions and in online virtual museums, and she says they have reached viewers within the United States and as far away as Russia, China, and India.
"Like our universe, I am in a state of constant flux."
Luthi is deliberate about rejecting the stereotype of the tormented artist. She describes herself as being of sound mind and having a well rounded perspective, and she finds the process of making art to be a positive experience rather than a painful one. The old preconception of the unstable artist holds no interest for her, and she dismisses it, in her own word, as a doldrum. Her attitude is optimistic, atomic as she puts it, and it fires her aim to touch people. That energy is what she hopes viewers will feel. The paintings are not confessions of suffering. They are the work of someone who enjoys making things, who takes the world in with open eyes, and who wants the people who see her art to leave with more than they arrived with.
Planted Yucca | Oil
$450
10" x 8"
A rendering of a plant native to the western United States.
One painting in particular, "Red Right Arm," expresses what Luthi calls a dream vision. It is a reminder that beneath the bright surfaces and the playful hidden details, her work can begin somewhere private and interior. She speaks mainly through the brush, sometimes in a muffled hush and sometimes with a verbal explanation alongside the image, and she is comfortable letting a painting hold more than one meaning at a time. She is influenced by the past, the present, and what she calls the soon to be near future in every area of her existence. Nothing is off limits as a source. A dream, a piece of music, a face, or a place can each become the seed of a canvas, and the viewer is trusted to follow wherever it leads.
An expressionistic windy sway on a heated day.
Boisterous Knots | Mixed Media
$400
11" x 14"
Encouraging others to create is as much a part of her practice as painting itself. Luthi spends much of her energy helping people of all ages find their own way to make things, in classrooms and beyond. This exhibition brings her work to a wider audience and offers a look into her world. Visitors will find bold color, smooth blending, movement and flow, and a wide range of subjects treated with equal seriousness and equal joy. They will also find the hidden faces and figures if they look carefully. Luthi hopes they laugh, or feel something they did not expect, and then carry that feeling with them. She expects her work to be found in many nations, and this show is one more step in that direction.
Atlas | Oil
$2,500
48" x 24"
An abstract, mint-condition take on a global contemporary point of view.
"My aim is to touch people, to provoke laughter or even tears."
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