We recently connected with Bill Karaffa and have shared our conversation below.

Bill, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Do you wish you had waited to pursue your creative career or do you wish you had started sooner?

My carrier in art started very late in my life. As a child I always had a strong interest and talent for art. I was sent to pre-college art classes at the Carnegie Mellon University of Fine Art at the age of 12. However, I was also interested and showed an aptitude for science and math. I ultimately followed the later of these two paths and successfully enjoyed a nearly 40-year carrier in engineering. Following my retirement (actually I still consult) I did some traveling abroad where I was inspired by the local art that I saw. I began to question what I could have achieved if I would have pursued the artistic rather than scientific path. Not so much a regret but more of an issue of unfinished business. A question I needed to answer for myself. I gave myself a 5-year period to see what I could achieve. In 2016 I began to focus my attention towards further developing and test my artistic ability. I joined a variety of art guilds and entered various art competitions. I emersed myself completely and in just a few years (of very hard work) I was able to realize artistic success locally, nationally and internationally. Although you might believe this would form a regret of not pursuing art more seriously it did not. I am very grateful for the rewarding engineering carrier I enjoyed and humbled by the privilege to enjoy a second carrier in art. I could never say to anyone to pursue any particular path because it’s the smart/safe thing to do. Rather I would say to them pursue where your passion and happiness direct you but with a realization that all paths have specific challenges and difficulties. Thoroughly recognize and understand these and the outlay of effort on your part prior to moving forward. Your passion, persistence and determination will be your ultimate guide.

Bill, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am a contemporary visual artist. My work follows a narrative realism and surrealistic style. Following a nearly 40-year hiatus from art as an engineer, I’ve worked in the Pittsburgh area on a full-time basis since 2016. I am most well-known for my portraiture and figurative art. I’ve exhibited at a variety of venues including the Butler Institute of American Art, Mills Pond Gallery (Long Island NY), Manifest Gallery, the Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art and the Lore Degenstein Gallery. My work has also appeared in the International Artists Magazine (Jan/Feb 2022).  I’m primarily self-taught but have enhanced my skills under instruction of internationally recognized artists. I entertain commission work and I also periodically conduct classes in portraiture and figurative art. My work is influenced by a variety of historical and current master artists that extend from the period of the renaissance to the modern era.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

Because society has become so polarized, I view visual art as one of the few remaining means to document our times communicate and engage the public in an objective manner. More and more, mass media, writing, and film have all evolved into some biased lean.

I have always been motivated by historical and current cultural traditions and societal norms that have played the central role in shaping the human conditions we witness today Each motif is selected in a manner that attempts to transcend what has been collectively decided as truth(s) working beyond what has been considered the way we see and how we should think.

My compositions are developed from the perspective of a neutral observer, free of any personal doxa regarding the subject matter, and independent of the social mechanisms that can pressure the artist towards some standard consensus. I avoid notions of how we are to see or think about any particular subject matter. However, even with these self-imposed constraints, like any artist, my work does carry my own underlying personal experiences, trauma and loss to some degree.

My work is deliberately made to a  larger scale to reduce the available safe space from where viewers may retreat. By minimizing the size of this available safe space, the viewer’s guarded position is removed, thus the realities presented in the composition must be faced head on. Essentially an “in your face” approach.

My goal is to challenge each viewer to consider how traditions, norms and other doxa have influenced their current perspective of the many issues our civilization faces. My work invites the viewer to free themselves from the bindings of these influences thus freeing their thoughts and more openly to uncover their own truths, as well as, more receptive of other viewer’s perspectives and truths.

Ultimately, I believe this approach affords the best opportunity for my work to become more effective and timeless. It also serves as a means to help the viewer escape the bindings of societal pressure to see and think in a certain way and release them to find their own underlying truth.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

The most rewarding aspect of visual art is the opportunity to dispassionately communicate an objective set of narratives over a variety of motifs, with the challenge of engaging and moving our viewers emotionally and intellectually without the benefit of words. There is immense satisfaction when I am able to move a viewer emotionally by the way they perceive the central character (s) in the composition and then intellectually through a variety of surrounding symbolism and allegory, which are intentionally juxtaposed to create multiple avenues for them to discover contrasting interpretations. The ultimate satisfaction is when viewers realize the possibility of multiple interpretations and become more receptive of other viewer’s perspectives and truths. This is where dialog may begin and ultimately enhance the effectiveness and timelessness of the artwork.

Communicating ideas and thought from a perspective of a neutral observer, free of my own personal doxa, and independent of social mechanisms that may introduce pressure towards some standard consensus is greatly freeing. To be able to composition while avoiding notions of how we are to see or think about any particular subject matter, and in fact contrast these positions entirely is empowering.

The ultimate satisfaction is when viewers realize the possibility of multiple interpretations and become more receptive of other viewer’s perspectives and truths. This is where dialog may begin and ultimately enhance the effectiveness and timelessness of the artwork.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @billkaraffa
• Facebook: Bill Karaffa