ARIANE KAMPS

Painting, Illustration, Oils, Watercolour

City: Penticton, British Columbia

Website: https://www.arianekamps.com/

Artist Statement: Ariane` Kamps’ figurative and landscape-inspired oil paintings reflect the hope and wonderment of her broad range of subject matter—women, children, and animals captured in moments of introspection, reflecting on their thoughts and emotions.

Children in particular are a rich source of inspiration for Ariane`’s portraiture. Impressionist tinges evoke the mysterious and ethereal dreamworlds of the childhood imagination, along with the freedom and joy that accompany a child’s first forays into creative art—as was the case for Ariane` as a girl, when whole universes were brought to life with only crayon and paper.

For Ariane`, it has been instructive seeing her own children developing and expressing themselves with such innocence and honesty. Not despite of, but because of their naiveté, they have access to the awe-inspiring and fanciful dream realms that inevitably fade into memory. Ariane` paints in order to remember her own childhood and its ready ability to realize what is seen in the mind’s eye.

Informing Ariane`’s practice, as a natural complement to her focus on the child, is motherhood and by extension, womanhood. In mythology and folklore, women have always been granted a wondrous power as nurturers and providers, but also because they seem to retain some element of the child’s paradoxical wisdom in innocence. They are capable of creating a bridge between the real and the fantastical.

As a parent it is impossible to protect our children from the inevitability of heartache.

Knowing this, Ariane`’s work walks a fine line between beauty and tragedy. At times a tragic memory is reimagined and thus rescued—cast in a new light to hold onto what is worthwhile and let go of the sadness. At other times, Ariane` turns to the oft-forgotten but highly-interesting stories on the periphery. These liminal worlds exist in a twilight space between wakefulness and sleep—where things that typically go unnoticed become unforgettable.

Ariane`’s goal is to continue to create art that may become a portal to worlds far out of reach. A place to fly, to talk to animals, to do anything the imagination can conjure.

Biography: Ariane` was involved in the arts since early childhood. Aside from her early dinosaur and mermaid renderings, she was also involved in ballet, modern dance, classical harp, piano etc. in Vancouver, BC. Early on it was visual arts that were her passion. She never took a lesson for visual art, unlike many of her other pursuits.

After starting a family and a few businesses, Ariane` had left art and music in the past. The creative spark returned when she had children of her own who also loved dinosaurs and mermaids. The experience inspired her to begin adding some wonder to the kid’s clothing by painting baby shoes & kids shoes, which quickly turned into a business of it’s own. Needing more room to create on she turned to portraiture in 2017. Since then she has been painting into the night to create commissioned work, surreal worlds and whatever else her inner child wants to create.