The closing for the exhibition on May 19th will coordinate with a slideshow from 6 to 8 PM where Karen and other artists will present brief talks about their work.
Karen Kreyeski's exhibition features extraordinary paintings of women from the Comstock towns of Silver City, Gold Hill and Virginia City.
Following is an excerpt from Shaun Griffn's review of the show when it was at St Mary's Art Center in Virginia City earlier in the year:
"These portraits, galvanized from friendship and work over 30 years, are tributes to the backbone of a community...Karen Kreyeski's rendering of their faces, their attributes is a singular recognition of this quality...Every oil portrait represents the choice a woman made to create a possible life: painter, archaeologist, educator, actress, gardener, bartender, and all the roles that become an amalgam of women: mother, wife, breadwinner. She honors each of their characters with portraits that bend time. They move away from the literal time of their lifework to reflect upon how these women lasted in their community, the Comstock, a place whose resources have been mined and excavated. Similarly, because of their relationships to Kreyeski, these portraits become testimony: this is how you live in a place, this is how you bridge the personal and public character...
What is it that called them to this place, that asked them to devote a life to its uncovering? The haunting refrain of why do this, why here, emanates from these faces. That it becomes worth their effort and consequently hers, is the unspoken power of these paintings. The women gather you in their stories because they are larger than any individual rendering. It is not important if you know them or the context of their lives; they are present in the room with you, the viewer. They will walk you to the door and listen for what follows and you will go with them..."
About Karen Kreyeski: Karen Kreyeski has been an art educator at schools in both Storey and Lyon School Districts, as well as the resident artist coordinator in Lyon and Storey School Districts. She was also previously a board member with Comstock Arts Council and was president of Nevada Arts Educators for many years. Her work has been shown in exhibits and galleries in Vegas, Tahoe, Reno and beyond, and can also be found in many private collections.
Of her work, she writes, "Living in Silver City in a house on a hill for almost 30 years that overlooks the sculptural shapes of the naked mountains between Dayton and Mound House has affected my vision of the western landscape. This influence results in my search for similar forms throughout Nevada and other western states where water is a rarity but distance plentiful and mountainous shapes loom as children."
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