Painting as Inquiry

Painting is how I engage with the world and with my inner life. My practice is informed by meditation, where attention, stillness, and patience shape how I work.

In the studio, each piece begins with written text (poems, prayers or mantras) applied directly to the canvas or wood panel. These marks establish an initial structure that is then obscured, revised, and reworked through layers of paint. The process is iterative, moving through accumulation, erasure, and return.

The resulting paintings hold traces of what came before while allowing new forms to emerge. They are developed over time, through sustained attention, and remain open rather than fixed.

“When you do something, you should burn yourself up completely, like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself.”
— Shunryu Suzuki
Abstract Colorado landscape painting with textured layers in soft white, gray, and pink by Karen Smith-Tschumy

Looking Ahead
2024
Mixed media on canvas
36 x 48 inches

In this piece, fractured fields of soft whites, earthen grays, and flashes of pink and indigo echo weathered terrain—like memory surfacing through snowfall.

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