Artworks Gallery Presents:

Karen Kopf, “The Woods: Paintings of and on Wood” and Kathy Schermer-Gramm, “Earth(L)y Discoveries: Botanicals on Paper”

Exhibition Dates: September 1-28, 2024
Artist Reception & Gallery Talk:
Sunday, September 15, 2-4pm, talk begins at 2:30

Also open for:
Gallery Hop: Friday, September 6, 7-9 pm
Art Crush: Friday, September 20, 7-9 pm

While living on a river, Karen Kopf became fascinated by the stumps of trees dredged out and left on the river bank. She has delved into the many shapes within these forms and depicted them realistically and abstractly using a textured technique called decalomania. The forms swirl and crest like waves of wood. Then the artist began painting on wood itself and sometimes created images based on what she saw in the grains and sometimes created images with the grain of the wood encapsulated in the strokes. This part of the exhibit includes flat panels of wood as well as other formats such as triptychs.

After studying painting in Austria for a year, Karen Kopf established a studio in Marbella, Spain on the Costa del Sol. Five years under the bright Spanish sun added an intensity to the colors of her palette and a wide range of experiences and exhibitions to her career as a professional artist. Her works from this period are all over the world. Upon returning to the U.S., she painted in upstate New York, where she was resident director of Guy Park State Historic Site. Eventually she moved to Winston-Salem where she earned a Master’s Degree from Salem College and worked for twenty years as a teacher while she and her husband raised two sons. She currently exhibits at Artworks Gallery in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

Karen Kopf, “Female Form in Nature”

Kathy Schermer-Gramm, the botanical illustrator, is an obsessive observer of plant life, a visual documenter of that which grows from the soil, dwelling on identifying species and describing it with imagery. Kathy’s interpretations expand upon this. She does not look for the classical plant portrait based on Carl Linnaeus’s system of taxonomy where the focus is on the reproductive cycle. Still the documentarian, staying true to her subject, she searches out random remnants of life found on her daily woodland walks. The artist finds fascination in the smallest of details, the wonders of natural architecture created with plant materials, and the effects of seasonal changes in the environment. This is the botanically inclusive artist who uses the fine point of a pencil or brush to render those minute details and textures through a slow meditative process.

Kathy Schermer-Gramm is a Society of Botanical Artists Fellow who was raised in Southern California earning her master’s degree in illustration from California State University, Fullerton. Her career includes that of book and magazine illustrator, nature educator, and college art professor. She has been a core instructor in the North Carolina Botanical Garden Botanical Art Program (UNC) for over twelve years, where her teaching expanded to include online courses with students from around the globe. Her botanical art, focusing on Southeastern flora and edibles, has been juried annually into the American Society of Botanical Artists, Guild of Natural Science Illustrators, Society of Botanical Artists, and Birds in Art international exhibitions.

Kathy Schermer-Gramm, “Pine Rust Galls”

This exhibit is free and open to the public.