This exhibition is dedicated to Catalonia. For ten years I have painted near the Spanish border in the town of Ceret. Politically it is French, but romantically it will always remain Catalan. Picasso discovered it in the early part of the Twentieth Century and invited his friend Georges to talk Cubism. A wave of artists followed.

  I began in ancient, complex Ceret. Like a Cubist, I was able to explore it from many aspects and directions. This intimacy gave me the freedom to embellish or simplify my subject to better describe it. The ever present Pyrenees increased my awareness of space even in the crowded town. They encourage a frequent change of vantage point to better observe from a distance or from across the street.

  Then, I moved to Barcelona. The old heart of the city, La Rambla, replaced Ceret. In contrast, my neighbourhood had little to say about itself from the street. Once inside however, I opened the shutters to be astounded by a rear view of houses; a landscape of balconies festooned with laundry and Catalan flags, crammed with planters, bicycles and furniture. Fascinated, I observed from a distance as the ever changing light altered this display. Now with a fixed vantage point, my sense of space diminished like the shallow balconies before me. They begged to be described as flat simple shapes.

  I feel privileged to paint in such an artistically active location. While Brune, Manolo, Soutine and Chagall, to name but a few, found inspiration in Ceret, Matisse perfected Fauvism in nearby Collioure, Dali formulated Surrealism across the border at Portlligat and Gaudi introduced Art Moderne to Barcelona. Catalonia has its fertile ghosts that continue to inspire and encourage my return to this evocative place.

Karen Kulyk
abbreviated C.V.

  After graduating from York University in 1973 with an Honours BFA Karen Kulyk established and successfully ran Seedlings, a Toronto gallery for emerging artists for two years, while continuing to maintaining her own studio work.

She joined the Marianne Friedland Gallery in 1975 and embarked on an eventful life of painting and exhibiting that has taken her to Thailand, Denmark, England, France, Italy, Catalonia, Bermuda, Venezuela, Cuba, Mexico, and Canada.

She was awarded the Grollo d’Oro for her use of colour at the Treviso International Art Competition, Italy in 1983 and a Sheila-Hugh Mackay Foundation grant in 1997, and is a Fellow of Winter’s College at York University and Grey College at Durham University, England.

She is the first Canadian to exhibit at the National Gallery of Thailand, and the Chicago International Art Exhibition and was invited to represent her country at Festival Canada 1991 in Hong Kong.

Kulyk has exhibited nationally with the Art Gallery of Ontario, Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery, and the Benbow, Calgary among others and internationally in England, France, Bermuda and Mexico over a professional career that spans thirty two years.

Her work hangs privately as far away as South Africa and Japan and is included in many museum and corporate collections around the world.