Local artist shows at downtown ArtWalk

ENCINITAS — Local artist Karen Eastman came to realize that her passion for creating art had gotten away from her, so she decided to start her own business called Paint, Glaze, and Fire!, a ceramics studio in Encinitas.
She enjoyed working with customers to help nurture and advance their own creativity, which in turn helped her to reignite her love of painting. She realized that painting was her favorite form of expression.
After several years, she sold her business and began focusing on her individual painting career. This led, once again, to Eastman being one of several North County artists chosen to take part in the annual ArtWalk in downtown San Diego. She will be showing abstract expressions in oil based on natural forms and how they relate to the human experience, through April 2 at tent numbers 105 and 107, in and around Little Italy, on Columbia Street.
Eastman’s artwork focuses on the relationship between the human spirit and how it is embodied in the forms found in nature. Some of her favorite metaphors relate to the beauty of the tree.
“Each tree reveals the human experience in its own way, by the shape of its trunk or the curve of its branches. I see a feminine energy that emanates from within each tree, and I seek to draw that out and portray it in each composition, ” Eastman said
The artist will take smaller parts of the organic whole, like leaves, branches, rocks, or grass and paint segments, or close up views of these natural forms. She wants to create a viewing experience that becomes more intimate. Eastman’s paintings capture the feminine spirit in each of these elements by using movement through strong sensual lines, and by using color through an extensive palette.
“Painting is very cathartic for me,” she said. “I create my compositions from the inside out, depicting what I experience, as opposed to what I physically see in front of me.”