Adele Kurtz layers a lifetime of creative imagery by combining conventional painterly techniques with digital exploration and inkjet printing on experimental surfaces.  

 

Her knack for pulling out emotional qualities within realistic interpretations created a successful niche for the first 25 years of the artist’s career. She was lauded as one of the nation's top digital designers by Photo District News in 1996. Her work was noted for its story-telling style and elegant presentation. These qualities, along with some of the actual drawings she created in those formative years, find their way back into her artwork today.

The artist has since has quit the frantic pace of commercial life and found peace in her mountain home in Colorado and on vacations in Sedona and Maui. Her heightened appreciation of both spirit and nature has pulled her art new directions. She now layers her changing emotional perceptions within a framework of old and new techniques, experimenting with surface and texture, with a curious, passionate spirit.

 “I try to keep things fresh by constantly experimenting with new techniques and materials,” she explains. “That way, I can still be surprised, from one day to the next, with what comes out of my studio."

Adele produces most of her work in series. In 2006, she began with Layered Perceptions, an experimental collection of eclectic reworks from her earlier photographs, paintings and drawings. In 2007-08 she created a dozen WaterPlay acrylic paintings, in which she “played with rainbows in the falls” and other water images which caught her eye.  She worked each piece deliberately from highly literal to more and more abstract and returns to the series when inspired. Responding to the economic and political crises of late 2008 - through 2009, she developed a series called FireWorks which are perhaps her most inspired expressionist pieces to date.
She also began experimenting with merging the human face and figure into nature studies. 

Both FireWorks and Nude Into Nature layer drawings and photographs over metals, stone and wood. Some also incorporate thick resin and acrylic coatings in order to eliminate the need for protective glass.  Adele is excited about the interplay of texture and surface and potential for dynamic surprises. You can see many of these new techniques under Mom & Son Art which blends techno-savvy with age-old experience.

 

On the Verge is a manipulated composition, layered from drawings and photographs, and printed on copper. Adele has several versions she developed while experimenting with alternative substrates.

FireWorks: Mixed Media on gallery-wrapped canvas, lavishly embellished with acrylic.