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Karen Fisher, first place winner in the Emerging Artists category of the 2012 Denver Plein Air Arts Festival, has been a member of the Art Students League of Denver since 1998. She has studied extensively with Ken Valastro and Jeff Wenzel, who have helped her focus and develop her skills and sensibilities as a painter. Karen works in mixed media, utilizing everything from acrylic and spray paint to found paper, to create works she calls “Painterly Pop Art.” These works highlight her passion for urban landscapes, the natural world, and the female form. Fisher takes inspiration from artists like Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt, creating works that juxtapose images of beauty found in fashion magazines with street advertisements that she collects from all over the world.
Scott Ruthven was the second place winner in the 2012 Emerging Artists category. Born in Niwot, Colorado in 1971, Ruthven grew up hiking, fishing and drawing in the Rocky Mountains. Family roots brought him to Montana and Idaho, where the vast ranchlands, prairie, forests and majestic mountains forever shaped his artistic vision. He also spent time with the Hopi and Navajo tribes in the Southwest, having the privilege of attending Hopi ceremonies and learning sandpainting from the Navajo. Ruthven’s early painting inspiration came from the work of Wilson Hurley, Tom Lovell, Len Chimel, and Clyde Aspevig. Today, he studies works from a variety of masters, past and present, in his endless pursuit of knowledge about the craft of painting. His landscapes reflect his visceral response to the light, mood, and subject. “Much of my work is done at the source, en plein air,” says Ruthven, “since I absolutely love being outside and I have yet to find a better teacher than Mother Nature.”
Paul K. Smallwood was the third place winner in the 2012 Emerging Artists category. Smallwood’s art education and degree are in sculpture, but he began to paint en plein air as a way to be able to go outdoors and observe nature away from the confines of working on one form inside a studio. Smallwood enjoys painting en plein air because of the chaos of forms found in nature. He aims to bring some control to the chaos through the simplification of shape, the repetition of forms, and the rhythm of line. Smallwood has spent several years cultivating his skill in painting. He began painting in watercolor, working quickly around the demands of his young family. As he became more confident, he progressed to acrylic and then oil. Smallwood has participated in the Denver Plein Air Arts Festival since 2009 and his paintings have been featured in the culminating show at the Denver Public Library for three of the past four years.
