(Painting Above, Rush Hour by Ian Factor)
Artist #1: Karen Ruane, Artist and Educator
Karen Ruane is an American artist residing in Bend. She received a BFA with a concentration in painting and illustration at the University of Arizona in 2001, and continued education at Rhode Island School of Design in photography. She has been creating art professionally for nearly 20 years. She has also taught process-based art classes to children aged four through 12, and currently teaches adult classes in her downtown studio. Karen also has produced an e-course on alcohol inks that has sold over a thousand times. Karen often shows her work at First Friday Art Walks and has had her work featured in several local and regional publications such as Cascade A&E, Bend Magazine and 1859 Oregon Magazine. Her work was also featured on the 2017 Deschutes Brewery Jubelale label and packaging.
Artist Statement: With a 20 plus year history in art making, I have experienced many evolutions in my artwork. Trained in figurative painting and illustration, my early work was representational and focused on the celebration (without sexualization) of the female form. After several years, I began to experience internal conflict with respect to my subject matter. Painting became a strain and burden, and drained me spiritually. I longed to find the peace and meditative state that art had once provided. I soon discovered the art of paper marbling — a centuries-old practice, originating in Asia and Eastern Europe. The art of floating and manipulating paints on a viscous surface provided me with the process-based sense of calm I was seeking. It became a meditation. Since discovering this fluid art form, I’ve found new and exciting processes in the fluid arts and continue today to create abstract art with fluid media. Studio visits welcome!
karenruane.com • hello@karenruane.com • Instagram: @karenruanestudio • Facebook: karenruanestudio
Artist #2: Ian Factor, Artist and Professor
Ian Factor was born in Boston, Massachusetts and began his formal art training at the DeCordova Museum School in Lincoln Massachusetts, the Museum of Fine Arts School and Massachusetts College of Art in Boston, and continued at the Art Students League and the National Academy in New York City. Factor earned his BFA from the School of Visual and Performing Arts at Syracuse University and his MFA from the New York Academy of Art where he graduated Cum Laude. His work has been exhibited and featured in galleries and museums worldwide, including New York City, Los Angeles, Boca Raton, Boston, Maine, Paris, Florence, Siena and Pietrasanta Italy. It is held in private and public collections internationally. A professor of fine art, illustration and design for over 20 years, Factor has taught and run programs in universities and academies from New York City to Guangxi China. He currently lives in Bend, Oregon where he is the Founder and Director of the Bend Academy of Art, and teaches at Oregon State University and Central Oregon Community College, where he is the Coordinator of Satellite Campus Art Programs.
Artist Statement: Factor’s recent paintings and drawings offer visual and conceptual narratives that inspire questions and explore ideas based on energy, dynamism and social psychology. At the same time, his work pulls the viewer into a direct, visceral and emotional experience with the subjects he portrays. His themes range from wildfires and their parallels with modern society’s narcissistic, voyeuristic obsessions with technology, social media and “selfies” to the intensity and crowded solitude of a New York City subway during rush hour. In addition to these narratives, Factor continues to focus on intimate portraits of individuals he meets in his daily life who have influenced him in some way. The constant underlying motive and theme in all his work is his search for moments of calm resolve in the midst of chaos, internally and externally. His process is rooted in the desire for connection, love and freedom in a world of increasing pressures towards the opposites.