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Dorothy Krakauer is an international artist and curator. Her work is predo- minantly based in oils, watercolors, acrylic, pencils, charcoal, pastels, and photography. Dorothy is passionate about her work and continues to create her own artwork, help other artists, and curate art shows. Her artist statement is “There is beauty even in a thorn. Beauty is everywhere.” She loves light, shadow, movement, and color. She finds newness every day and loves to be outside when she produces her artwork. “Nature has been good to me for there is where I find my most beautiful subjects.”
Dorothy can be described as intense and quiet while working; creating art- work is her meditation. Born on the Indian Nations Reservations in Columbia Falls, Montana, she has been active as an artist and curator worldwide for many years, recently in New York City galleries and art organizations. She has a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Massachusetts, Boston, studied photography, and taught herself to pencil sketch and to paint with watercolors and acrylic. Dorothy learned the art of oil painting with Shunjiro Nakamura, a designated Living National Treasure, in Tokyo, Japan. Her world travels have allowed her to paint and sketch on site in many countries.
Her artwork has been in more than one hundred group and solo exhibits worldwide, including in Japan, Turkey, Europe, Colombia, Hong Kong, and the United States, and hangs in private and corporate collections in these countries and in Australia. Dorothy has curated nearly one hundred art ex- hibits. She has received awards for her artwork and in fashion modeling, ballroom dancing, and international relations. Dorothy has taught oil painting, English as a second language, fashion modeling and personal growth, clas- ses on international culture, and classes for children with disabilities. Dorothy believes her greatest artistic achievement to date is the work she did in Izmir, Turkey. Her original oil painting of Saint Francis of Assisi in the Cathedral of Saint John the Evangelist, Izmir, Turkey, completed in 1975, is a designated National Art Treasure of Turkey. She was responsible for supervi- sing the renovation of the sanctuary, including the cleaning and repair of five other oil paintings, the walls, and chandeliers. For this project, she had the invaluable assistance of an Italian who worked with the archbishop and in the cathedral, a carpenter, the assigned Turkish apprentices – two each year, between the ages of 10 and 12 – and volunteers. During the same years in Izmir, Dorothy worked with another American woman artist to repair and restore frescoes in the seventeenth century Church of Saint Polycarp. Dorothy has always loved Asian art and studied oil painting in Tokyo with Shunjiro Nakamura. Her work is much influenced by the Rinpa era of art, a movement of painting and aesthetic design that emerged in Japan during the Edo period, 1615-1868. Two artists from Kyoto, Tawaraya Sōtatsu and Hon’mi Kōetsu, are historically acknowledged as the predecessors of the Rinpa tradition. Rinpa is characterized as a revitalization of Yamato-e, a Ja- panese style of painting developed in the ninth century using a rich palette of colors; soft contoured landscapes, and emphasis on themes from poetry and secular subject matter. Dorothy bases her paintings on real objects from nature including leaves, boughs, rocks, ocean scenes, and landscapes. In fact, she collects rocks, leaves, boughs and “odd things” from nature to study for use as inspiration and subjects of her artwork. Another group of artists who influence her artwork are the women Japanese writers such as the no- blewoman and lady-in-waiting Murasaki Shikibu, author of The Tale of Genji, available in 1008, considered to be the world’s first novel and to be a classic. Other classic literature of this nature are The Tales of Ise and the poetry of the courtiers of the Heian period in Japan. Nature and the seasons are constant recurring themes in this literature. “The Haiku of the Japanese poets also inspires me.” Dorothy writes Haiku and often creates drawings to go with her poetry.
Like many artists, her work has evolved through life itself.
Dorothy now works more in watercolor, than in oil paints and photography. Several years ago, she began creating a series of artwork based on studies of actual leaves both from small plants and trees. Her inspiration to work is life and talent. She feels that an artist needs to learn everything possible about people in general, the culture in which one lives and to which the artist wants to market their work.
“Remember that many people throughout history, and even now, did not know and do not know how to read and write.
The imagery produced by artists in all media is the ‘word’ or are the ‘words’ that are used to share knowledge, to teach people about each other, the ear- th, religion, politics, personal and cultural wellbeing, how to create the objects that are useful in life, and practice respect for each other.”
Dorothy Krakauer (New York)
“Laughing”, Watercolor and silver metallic acrylic.
Dorothy Krakauer
There is beauty even in a thorn. Beauty is everywhere.