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Realscapes: photorealistic acrylic landscapes
 

Upcoming Profile in the Canadian Art Magazine Arabella

The following is a bit on my history as an artist.

His art history, how he started and the rest of the journey
Ken Nash was born and raised in the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia and has created art for over fifty years using a variety of mediums including ink, coloured pencil and acrylics on paper, wood and canvas. Before starting school in Armstrong, he was initially inspired to be creative by his mom, who had the best intentions, but was also motivated to end the repetitive questions of “What can I do Mom?” coming from a five year old. Kenny had the wide open spaces of a 110 acre farm to explore or (since he was little), the forested expanse of the front yard, but needed that little bit extra, that elusive idea that he couldn’t come up with himself. Noticing he had abandoned his fleet of cars and trucks on the laneways of the striped couch in the living room, she picked up a small logging truck and said “Here, why don’t you draw this?” Quickly providing the rest of the required materials, she set them down on the grey arborite of the kitchen table and he did just that. Based on his understandably biased memory, he drew a remarkable facsimile of the truck…..and not just one but several. He noticed for example, after dropping his pencil, that the truck looked differently from different angles, distances and elevations. Kenny wasn’t aware of what an angle or elevation were but he did know that the truck looked different whenever he changed his seat.

So that was the start but the interest, the fascination really, never waned. A couple of years later, after he had finished a Superman comic, he glanced at the back page and noticed an ad for a Jon Nagy Learn to Draw Kit. Had to have it (petitioned those who could make it happen)…… couldn’t wait to get it (asked every day after school)….. and finally it arrived. Now he was able to relate his drawing experience to terms such as perspective, vanishing points, form, composition, shading and the influence of light and shadow. Now he was able to construct scenes with more things, with more things happening, and it felt good.

Growing, evolving, continuing to sketch and create, he became known by friends and family for his skill in recreating on paper, the world around him. He had the opportunity to paint storefront windows during the various festivals celebrated by the Armstrong Chamber of Commerce. He also provided most of the artwork for the school annuals and school papers. He was reminded by his cousin this year at a celebration of life event, of his ability to entertain them for hours with his random and spur of the moment depiction of cartoon characters, most of whom were from the deep recesses of a never sit still mind.

So how did this naïve and still a novice artist become an abstract expressionist at the age of sixteen through his university years? He was a child of the Sixties who experimented with interpretive impressionism and other styles but adamantly denies experimenting with anything else. Is there a tie-in here to how his artistic style evolved and how his belief system changed? He firmly believes that we are shaped by our beliefs and our art is a derivative of who we are. Dali-esque creations became his conduit to the world and were created with no less passion or commitment than had he been drawing a rushing stream through a meadow. These early works are probably long gone wherever long gone works go, filtered through the former marketplace of the aptly named Starving Artist Gallery at Pender and Cardero in Vancouver; a gallery which aided a skinny (not starving) student at SFU who welcomed the few dollars provided by the gallery.

So what was next? He was still on that continuum that we call life’s path that included a career along with a wife and two children and less time for his now subdued passion. However the fire may have flickered but never went out. It’s interesting how he describes keeping the embers glowing by using essays and presentations and the words within them during his career as a means of keeping his art alive. Descriptively, he would create a written work that gave him a level of satisfaction that kept him going. His career with the Canadian Grain Commission took him from Vancouver to Winnipeg and back again and fulfilled his needs as a provider and bore witness to his growth as a person with an evolving set of beliefs. However, the fact that he undertook art commissions during his career probably was responsible, more than anything, for meeting his needs as an artist. These commissions came about as people became aware of his talent and he tried to find a balance between his work, his art and his family. During this period beginning about twenty-five years ago and no doubt influenced by the type of commissions he was getting, Ken once again refocused on realism.
He became motivated once again to paint exactly what he saw. For the most part, he had walked the path in the forest, or trod on the windswept beach or stood on the snowy bank of the stream that has just woken up from winter slumber. These events triggered a response that still inspires him to capture that particular moment in time. That doesn’t mean that he is blissfully unaware of the “rules’ of composition, tone and colour, which means he might make some changes to satisfy artistic values but it might equally mean that he could choose to ignore these “rules’. He has expressed in the past that when he looks at his painting, as it progresses, he wants the sense that he could find himself on that path and feel the rocks beneath his feet or sense the texture of the log as it lay dappled by sunlight. Importantly, he wants viewers to feel those very same things. His paintings capture a fragment of time, a single moment that can be beautiful, and still be moody, can still be frantic, or evocative, but nevertheless a fragment that perhaps might be lost in the next instant but for his organized brush strokes.

Some may have looked at him and thought, “Is time really on the side of a guy his age?” or “Does he really think he has time to figure it all out, to paint enough that he knows what he wants to do and for people to recognize his style?” Well, Ken had a plan. He had a full career with the Canadian Grain Commission and left with decades of time ahead of him. At the age of 56, he chose to paint for five years in order to create an inventory that would be available to exhibit and market. He never once thought about time as a limiting factor but rather of the timeliness of getting the right things done. So in 2011 he sought public opinion when he went out into the world with his art. Despite having created art for most of his life and despite the fact that people had chosen him to produce commissioned work, this would be the first exposure, his first real trial by jury.

Over the ensuing six years he has had numerous juried group and solo exhibitions, became an active member of the Federation of Canadian Artists, became a signature member of the world-wide group Artists for Conservation, has gallery representation through Gallery 204 in Langley, B.C., has recently exhibited his work in Arta Gallery in Toronto, and is currently part of group of artists in Western Canada called Westart that have two exhibitions annually in the Lower Mainland of B.C. His next exhibition with Westart is at the Glasshouse Estate Winery in Langley B.C. in early September 2017 following which he has a solo show planned for the month of November 2017 in Armstrong, B.C. called “Coming Home”.

With exceptions noted, Ken feels that successful artists have proven their achievements are directly related to the amount of work they have created that makes people (and he wouldn’t call them all collectors) want to possess it. So while he admits sales equal success, he still enjoys the “wow” factor if it is being applied to one of his paintings whether or not a sale is involved. This feedback recognizes the passion, integrity, and dedication to a style of art in spite of perhaps individual preference. Now at this stage of his life in art, he values those moments of recognition that reflect an awareness of the combination of technical skill and imaginative nuance that make it unique and transcendent of preconceptions and preferences.

 


 
 
Direct Correspondence to:Ken  Nash
 
Ken  Nash
c/o NashArt
722 Ducklow St.
Coquitlam, BC
Canada V3J 4E1
Tel: (1) 604 375-3155
  Worldwide Nature Artists Group
Email: knash@telus.net
Home Page: http://www.realscapes.ca
Ken  Nash Ken  Nash

 
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Member of The Worldwide Nature Artists Group www.natureartists.com.