((Left) Kenneth Marunowski painting at Black Butte Ranch | Photo courtesy of Red Chair Gallery (Right) Painting by Kenneth Marunowski)
Painter Kenneth Marunowski’s work combines two artistic styles: abstract impressionism and abstract expressionism, both of which hail from the Baby Boom era, the 1940s and 1950s. The difference between them, respectively, may be boiled down to the rendering of actual objects or people directly and abstractly compared with using intuition, gestural brush strokes and color fields on large canvases without showing objects or people. Aside from these academic definitions, Ken uses both methods to generate glowing color and a sense of movement in his paintings. His work is showcased at Red Chair Gallery in January.
So far, Ken’s life has comprised many chapters, but only since he moved to Bend has he been able to concentrate fully on his painting. In late 2015, he and his wife Carly relocated from Duluth, Minnesota, where he taught argumentative writing at the University of Minnesota Duluth for nine years. Prior to that, he taught English as a second language in Dresden, Germany, after attaining a master’s degree in that subject. His academic achievements also include a bachelor of arts in French, a bachelor of fine arts in art, and a Ph.D. in literacy, rhetoric and social practice. Along the way, he participated in many art workshops and painted continuously. He speaks near fluent French and recently taught painting in France. The artists whose work inspire him the most are the abstract expressionist painters Willem de Kooning and Joan Mitchell.
Since moving to Bend, Ken has immersed himself in the Oregon art scene, teaching classes and workshops on painting and drawing, exhibiting his work at various local venues and galleries, and writing about art for this publication. Living in Oregon has stimulated his imagination, he reports, noting “The local landscape inspires me the most.”
He paints mostly large canvases and often selects “elements in nature that really speak to me and that I can render abstractly, using memory as a filter to weed out unnecessary detail,” he remarks. The artist has been dazzled by the profusion of pink flowering trees around town in the spring and was motivated to paint “their fecundity and movement of petals blowing in the wind,” he recalls. A future project may include an abstract painting of the Metolius River, showing “the flow of the river and the radiance of the water itself with all its different shades of blue.”
In July, 2024, Ken will have an exhibition of large abstract paintings at LAURA VINCENT DESIGN & GALLERY in Portland’s Pearl District. This month, he is participating in an abstract showcase at Sagebrushers Art Society in Bend and will teach a workshop there in early May entitled Abstracting the Still Life: Lessons from Matisse. In June, he will lead an abstract impressionism workshop at the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology on the Oregon Coast.
In addition to all this, Ken has another business he calls Spirit of Play Art where he inspires families, friends or colleagues to create art together. Dismayed by seeing so many families and people in general gathered together but increasingly disengaged from each other because they are glued to their phones or tablets, he thought, “Why not get them to collaborate on something together, and what is better to collaborate on than art?” To do so, Ken arrives at a home or business equipped with ample acrylic paints, application tools, a giant 48” x 60” canvas, and drop cloths. He gives a short talk on abstract painting, accompanied by visual images from his iPad. Then he places the canvas on the floor, at least initially, and everyone starts painting under his loose direction until the work reaches a state of resolution for those involved. The process usually takes about four hours, including set-up. After the piece is finished, he affixes hangers and wire to it and places it in a chosen location. Numerous families and a couple of businesses in Bend have participated in this exercise and “the results have been amazing,” Ken says.
To view Ken’s paintings and drawings, to sign up for a workshop, to request a commission, or to schedule a Spirit of Play Art event, visit his website and sign up for his quarterly newsletter at kennethmarunowski.com.