Katherine Beck                                      American painter and writer A constant investigation into light and space has been my aesthetic experience with visual art. My works materialize through formalistic criteria of organized scale, color, and spontaneous brushwork, engaging historical techniques of traditional oil painting within conditions of 20th-century American abstraction. I am influenced by traditions in landscape painting, particularly the Hudson River School, as well as the nuance of color and perspective developed in late 14th-17th century Flemish, Netherlandish, and northern Italian painting.                                                                                                                                                             Recent fascinations include experimentation with lens-based image in the landscape, including conceptualization by overpainting, presenting fresh opportunities for feeling and illusionistic space, and furthering the obscurity of realism, and the nature of abstraction.                                                                                                                                                                       A personal exploration of words and thoughts through poetry and essay is an extension of my visual art practice. I am interested in writing about artists and their exploration of visual media.