We recently connected with Ken Karlic and have shared our conversation below.

Ken, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

I knew I wanted to be in a creative field from a very early age, mostly because I knew i wanted to be creative. The first major experience I had in art was at home at a very young age. Each December for the holidays, my father painted the outlines of a scene from a holiday card on the inside of our large picture window. Myself and my two brothers, filled in the areas with color. The experience of seeing the painting come to life, especially on such a large scale, made a deep impression upon me. I knew I wanted to be in a creative field, I didn’t know which creative field I was interested in, and I didn’t know how to pursue a path. I just knew to remain open minded along the way.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Rather than think of myself as a painter, I think of myself as a designer that paints. My educational journey had stops in Architecture, Painting, and Graphic Design, and I received a BFA in Graphic Design. This led to a 35 year design career serving some of the most elite cultural institutions in the world, including the Guggenheim Foundation and Smithsonian Institution. The entire time, I continued to paint, but when I began getting more serious, I already had this strong sense of design as a foundation which became a perfect foil or contrast for my expressive painting. Not bound by standard guidelines, I continued to experiment with watercolors, making my own set of rules. I apply thicker and thicker passages of paint, following them with streams of water channeled through lands of pigment. I welcome any random effects that are created along the way. It’s by pushing, yet balancing, the relationship of “water” and “color”, I develop a new way of painting. Luxurious paint plays a prominent role rendering a subject more abstractly. I allow representational subject matter to drop off or even disappear, as my interest is in creating mystery and fostering ambiguity.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

I want to always realize my best painting, and to find venues that most understand my painting. The creative journey is a continuum, and we constantly define, reach for, realize, and repeat.

: Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

The larger goal is continued artistic growth.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://kenkarlic.com
• Instagram: @kenkarlic
• Facebook: http://facebook.com/kenkarlic

Image Credits
Photo of Ken Karlic by Leah Wells