The creative drive has always inhabited Patricia Kramer, who took all sorts of avenues before her imagination found its true expression in painting. From fashion design to jewelry making, including lamp making, the artist has never lacked ideas to advance his inventive passion. Creating her own opportunities, she has always explored her desires in order to bring them to life, but commercial constraints hinder her need for expansion and she wants more freedom. From one experience to another,  his path becomes clearer and trust settles in, until his life project is defined only in the execution of paintings. Having devoted the last 18 months exclusively to her art, this Dutchwoman, endowed with a BAC in plastic arts from the University of Quebec at Trois-Rivières and a DEC in fashion design from Lasalle College, finally manages to actualize her full potential and find who she really is.

 

If before, art represents for her a simple way of expressing herself that can take many forms, it has instead become a deep desire to participate in the great work of the universe by creating beauty for people. "I paint to find a personal harmony, to produce something serene that gives me well-being in order to offer it to others." His paintings invite to an intimate oneirism testifying to the uniqueness of each soul, in an inner and true encounter.

  Having evolved over time, his semi-abstract style now suggests natural or urban landscapes whose wide horizon makes one breathe and gives a feeling of freedom to the mind. The elements are only evoked in order to allow a vast space of interpretation being able to correspond to a multitude of visions. “With the figurative, the brain inevitably intervenes by analyzing in order to understand. It's more limiting. My approach is mainly instinctive, I just try to listen to what is coming up. Everything is in openness and presence, first to oneself, then to the energy in motion which is gradually actualized in matter. Finding the balance to feel when to spurt out and when to hold back remains a challenge to be constantly taken up thanks to the union of gesture and mind.
 

Very attracted by the raw side of land art which makes her belonging to the Earth resonate, bits of hay or even pieces of cement in her works, which will come to give direction to the composition. “I like to use the real objects instead of representing them, because the vibration is more authentic. During my walks, I still pick up pieces that I want to use, but my entourage now brings me a variety of items from all over the world, to the point where I no longer need to find any. others. I prepare them by drying them, I clean them, sand them and sometimes protect them with varnish to prevent them from degrading.”

Alongside its favorite theme in connection with nature, coexists an urban dimension that represents action, trends, modernity and contact with others. These two worlds intersect and intertwine on occasion, just like in reality.
Although a few touches of color such as red or ochres sometimes pop here and there, its rather neutral palette generates a soft and soothing atmosphere conducive to introspection. However, the whole does not lack character, skillfully playing with contrasts. The luminosity of pearl white is thus often opposed to black, which anchors the subject and gives it strength, embellished with shades of gray. Matte rubs shoulders with gloss, relief and textures rub shoulders with flat and smooth, with an overall concern for simplicity and purity. As her full of mixed techniques involves a series of drying stages, she works by juxtaposition on several canvases at the same time, each being at a different stage, this perspective allows her to renew her gaze in order to identify the areas to be exploited. thereafter while avoiding overloading. “I have to be careful not to go too far so that everything remains zen. It is an apprenticeship that  everything remains zen. It's a learning process to know when to stop, to take less, like a kind of letting go.

To treat acrylic, she uses brushes, sticks, spatulas or rags, for so many different results, all in subtlety but retaining a certain liveliness. If for a time, Patricia Kramer mainly developed the horizontal format, she has recently ventured into verticality and is enthusiastic about these new possibilities which lend themselves so well to her artistic approach. Having done a lot of welding during his academic training, his affinity with metals made him dream of one day casting small bronze fragments that could be integrated into his paintings, especially for their rustic aspect.
Established in the Mauricie, it has been active for some time to make itself better known in its region and takes the lead in setting up events to increase its visibility and success.
 

Patricia Kramer's works can be found at the Delat in Trois-Rivières, at the Émeraude gallery in Old Montreal, as well as at the Céleste gallery in St-Sauveur.

Lisanne Le Tellier
Art magazine, winter 2014