Sometimes defiance pays off. In high school, Laurie Kersey, a rebellious teenager with irresistible pluck and a flair for painting, was faced with a painful ultimatum: complete an assignment of 30 poems for a writing class required for graduation, or fail high school. Kersey’s visually oriented mind and “optional” interpretation on authority refused to submit to the literary torture. Staring the consequence dead in the eye, she didn’t turn in her assignment. As the end of the semester approached, her teacher met with her to discuss the situation. What the dreaded Iliad-waving wordmonger said surprised her. She told her that while some people prefer verbal expression, which must be formulated within the constraints of language, visually oriented people express themselves more naturally within the open framework provided by art. She knew Kersey was into painting, so she struck a deal with her: six paintings for 30 poems. Kersey got an A.
Laurie Kersey’s daring approach seems to have worked for her ever since. When the successful plein-air artist reached moments when most people would have bitten bullets and bowed to bland precedents, she rebelled against blind expectations, armed only with the certainty that she would not be pushed in the wrong direction. After 15 years in the graphic arts field in North Carolina she dropped everything to move out West to become a fine artist. Kersey talked about her significant and risky career change, explaining, “I had started doing some oil painting on the side, and I found that I was much more interested in my painting in my studio than in the project on my desk. So I sold almost everything I owned and put the rest in a pickup truck and moved to California. I took painting classes at the Academy of Art College in San Francisco and waitressed on the side to pay the bills.” Though Kersey affirmed that she had some reservations about trading a steady paycheck for a starving artist’s adventure, she avowed with conviction, “It wasn’t going to stop me.” Kersey’s rebellious streak has, fortunately for her collectors, led her to risk a gander off the beaten path of high school assignments and job security to venture into a different world, where creativity reigns and spunk is rewarded.
Laurie Kersey grew up mostly in Ohio and Pennsylvania, though her family moved around quite a bit due to her father’s career as a horse racer. Her mother, a watercolorist, inspired Kersey’s interest in drawing and introduced her to the world of painting. Kersey displayed her art for the first time at the age of thirteen at an art show she attended with her mother. “Growing up, I drew everything from horses to rock stars,” she said. When asked what first sparked her interest in art, she replied with a laugh, “Crayons.”
The summer after high school she attended an art program at the Chatauqua Institute in Chatauqua, New York for which she had a full tuition scholarship. After her summer of fine arts studies, Kersey changed gears from passionate to practical and enrolled in a two-year graphic arts program at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, hoping to channel her artistic creativity into a more reliable career. This choice was the first step down a graphic design career path that would last 15 years. Over this time Kersey went from layout artist in Cleveland, to comprehensive production artist in Pittsburgh, to art director/illustrator in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina. In Kill Devil Hills, she would start fine-art painting with oils and find representation with her first gallery.
In 1993, she left North Carolina for a year to paint the Sedona desert in Arizona and to illustrate on an as-needed basis for a company called Eaton Associates. Though she found inspiration in Sedona’s amazing canyons and red rocks, she explained, “It’s an artist community out there, and that’s neat, but not really me.” As for her job at Eaton Associates, the free-spirited Kersey confirmed, not surprisingly, “It was okay, but I much prefer working for myself.”
After a year in Sedona, Kersey returned to South Carolina and worked as a freelance illustrator, producing graphic design work for clients such as the National Park Services, Ramada Inn, Days Inn, and Harlequin Books. Kersey had no intention of abandoning her canvas, however. As the days came and went like the ebbing tide on one of Kersey’s vivid coastlines, the aspiring artist realized more and more that her place was not in an office staring at a computer, but amid nature staring at a stunning seascape or a sun-kissed valley that begged to be immortalized by her brush. So Kersey gathered her courage, along with a few of her most precious belongings, and drove out to California to become a fine artist.
“I’d say the greatest challenge I encountered to get to where I am today was tolerating all the other jobs I had to do,” says Kersey. “I was waitressing to pay the bills while going through art school, and even in San Francisco I went to school full-time and waitressed full-time. The whole starving-artist scene. I even worked at an art store for a while and hated it. (She pauses) I loved school. But the minute I walked out the door I was facing the waitressing job and everything else.” Though she has had to encounter, work through, and finally overturn some imposing obstacles, Kersey now takes pleasure in knowing that she has achieved her greatest success: making a living doing what she loves.
Kersey, who prefers to blaze her own trail, does not define her work in the traditional category of impressionism. “I personally would call it ‘painterly realism’,” she explained with a chuckle. “My figures tend to be more realist while my landscapes are more impressionist. I would say that my style is loose and incorporates expressive brushwork. I like confident brushwork. Not hesitant little dabs, but brushwork that looks like you meant it.”
Kersey’s work is also marked by vivid light and shadow contrasts—the result of her attraction to strong value patterns and colorful, eye-catching images. Several themes seem to emerge in her art: flowers, the female figure, isolated landscapes, water, dock scenes. But Kersey, who says her goal is to “keep it fresh,” doesn’t have a favorite genre. And though her landscapes may inspire dreams of faraway, isolated paradise, and her colorful, tempting still-life fruit may offer food for reflection, Kersey asserts that her art has no implicit agenda. “I’m not trying to send a message. I’m not one of those people who try to get all political or psychological with their art. I just want to capture images of quiet, calm, and serenity. In a perfect world, a beautiful beach would be tranquil and isolated instead of being filled with 300 people. I like the land the way it was. That’s why I eliminate light poles, telephone wires, and all the man-made junk. I try to give people a moment of peace in the insanity of their existence. So I guess if there’s a message in my art, it would be a feeling of peacefulness.”
Kersey is married to Brian Blood, a fellow plein-air artist she affectionately refers to as her “built-in painting partner.” The couple lives in California within close proximity of Point Lobos and Monterey, two of their favorite areas of artistic inspiration. Here, Kersey can be seen soaking up the soothingly serene environment and transcribing her surroundings into a representation of peace and tranquility. This image of Laurie Kersey, calm and peaceful, content and fulfilled, is a far cry from the rebellious teenager who hated poetry, or the over-worked waitress struggling to pay her way through school, or the creatively frustrated graphic artist glued to her computer monitor. Yet the passion, the daring and the determination that allowed her to leap past her obstacles are the same qualities that are ever-present in her work: her rebellious style that defies categorization; her determined brushstrokes; her stunning use of color; her passion for the untamed, uncivilized beauty of nature; and, of course, the daring move to San Francisco that made it all possible.
Indeed, amidst Kersey’s quiet, peaceful, plein-air landscapes, nestled somewhere between the clear open sky and the quiet depths of the water, is the subtle hint of a talented rabble-rouser who defied the norms, risked everything, and came out on top.
By Laurie Kersey (Oil on Canvas) 11 x 14 Inches
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By Laurie Kersey (Graphite) 9 x 12 Inches
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By Laurie Kersey (Graphite) 9 x 12 Inches
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By Laurie Kersey (Graphite) 9 x 12 Inches
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By Laurie Kersey (Graphite) 9 x 12 Inches
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By Laurie Kersey (Graphite) 9 x 12 Inches 2015
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By Laurie Kersey (Graphite) 9 x 12 Inches 2015
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Vestibulum pulvinar risus at nisl consectetur, vel dapibus lacus euismod. In vitae orci non urna venenatis posuere. Maecenas et fermentum turpis. Suspendisse in nunc sem. Morbi dapibus sem nec mi accumsan, et tincidunt nisl pellentesque. Suspendisse sed nulla a est cursus consequat. Curabitur elementum orci ut ligula dignissim, in egestas purus vestibulum. Nam ac tempor metus. Fusce id tempus libero. Donec nec ipsum ornare, mattis est at, placerat est. Orci varius natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Nam elit lorem, egestas quis volutpat a, tincidunt id metus. Maecenas at ante risus. Quisque euismod turpis erat, non sodales tellus venenatis id. Aliquam iaculis nibh justo, ut eleifend eros pulvinar interdum. In hac habitasse platea dictumst.
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By Laurie Kersey (Graphite) 11 x 14 Inches 2015
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By Laurie Kersey (Graphite) 12 x 16 Inches
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As a girl, Laurie Kersey used to go to the art shows where her mother, an amateur painter, was exhibiting her work. By the age of 13, Laurie was exhibiting her own work in the junior division of these shows. “Charcoals, pastels, pen and ink—I would mat the pieces and sell them,” Kersey recalls fondly. “And I’d win awards.” Unknowingly, she was preparing for a life as a fine artist, following in her mother’s footsteps.
Born in Canada, Kersey spent most of her youth on the move. Her father raised horses, and the family relocated frequently, often going south for the winter. “I grew up in Ohio and went to school in Pittsburgh, New York, and Florida,” she explains. “Everywhere I moved I took my can of crayons.” In the schoolyard, she heard a frequent request from the other children: “Draw me a horse!” At home, she observed her mother’s artistic pursuits. “Every Friday night, she had three friends come over and they set up easels in the kitchen to paint,” she remembers. Her own identity as an artist was taking shape.
In grade school, Kersey received encouragement from an art teacher who put up a showcase displaying her work. In high school, she received more support: Recognizing Kersey’s talent, another art teacher took the fledging artist to the arts supply closet, opened it, and said, “Knock yourself out.” Kersey would go there during free periods and “just experiment” in different media. By the age of 16, she was begging her parents for an airbrush. “I never had to debate about what I was going to be when I grew up,” she says. “I knew it would be artsy.”
After high school, Kersey won a scholarship to attend a summer session at the Chautauqua Institution, a fine-arts camp in Chautauqua, NY. “It was a mentor-type program,” she explains, “and students were given free rein to experiment and develop their talents.” Kersey found herself immersed in the arts, surrounded by youthful painters, musicians, dancers, and actors. Although the experience was inspirational, she noticed that her teachers “ate, slept, and breathed art 24 hours a day. I didn’t want that at the age of 18.” Instead, believing it would leave her more free time, she chose a career in graphic arts, which she studied at the Arts Institute of Pittsburgh. “I was surrounded by artists with the same interests,” she says.
For the next 15 years, Kersey pursued a successful commercial art career, taking jobs in both Pittsburgh and Cleveland. Eventually, she moved to Kill Devil Hills, NC, where the landscape inspired something in her. “I had moved to this beautiful coastal area, and I thought, My god, it’s gorgeous!” she recalls. “I kept seeing scenes that just melted into my brain.” Kersey produced a number of paintings that enabled her to show her work in some local galleries. In 1993, she spent a year in Sedona painting the Arizona desert. “In addition to the light and atmosphere, there’s a grandeur that you don’t get on the East Coast,” she says of painting among the red rocks.
Returning to North Carolina, Kersey realized she could no longer sit in an office all week. “I was unhappy with my work,” she admits, and nature’s beauty was calling to her artistic sensibilities. But she had a nagging feeling that she just didn’t know enough about painting. So she decided to go back to art school.
Kersey moved to San Francisco to study at the prestigious Academy of Art University. One day, she remembers, she was walking on campus when she passed by a huge display window with artwork by a teacher who was promoting his class. “It stopped me dead in my tracks,” says Kersey. The professor, Brian Blood, was teaching a plein-air landscape class. “It was my first real experience with plein-air painting,” she says. The course had another profound effect on Kersey: She eventually married Blood, whom she refers to today as her “built-in painting partner.”
Kersey cites her experience painting en plein air as defining in her development as a landscape artist. “It makes you see differently,” she says. “I do still work occasionally from photographs, but given the option, I prefer painting from life.” Like most landscape painters who frequently work outdoors, Kersey copes with the many challenges. “There’s the time factor and the rapid changes in light. And then the fog rolls in,” she notes. “But still, it’s addictive! It’s all worth it. There’s just no substitute.”
Kersey explains that the power of landscape painting also comes from conveying the unseen elements: “The crash of the ocean, the rush of the wind, the birds twittering—that’s also a part of it.” She admits that she does not really know “how that happens” but observes that “it just comes out.”
The California-based painter claims that her primary challenge is “to be as fresh and concise as possible.” One of the influences for this approach stems from her experiences as a graphic artist. “At commercial art school, I fell in love with some of the work done by artists using markers. A few strokes of the marker—and there was an automobile!” she recalls. She observes that the strength of those deceptively simple drawings emanated from “concise, deliberate strokes” and adds that “it’s a case of being more condensed, more poetic, with your brush strokes.”
A similar poetic quality surfaces in much of Kersey’s work. Blocks of color and seemingly rapid strokes draw the viewer deep into the picture. A distant sky, for example, may dissolve into a flat, misty tone. Kersey says it is this quality—“my concise brush stroke and somewhat subtle color palette”—that distinguishes her from other painters. Her chromatic sense is, indeed, noticeably quiet. “Many other landscape painters are bright and splashy. I’m more reserved,” says the artist. A subdued elegance emerges from these muted tonalities, and some of her oils actually seem more like watercolors with their soft blocks of color.
In addition to the stellar beauty of her landscapes, which comprise about two-thirds of her work, Kersey divides the rest of her artistic time equally among still lifes, figures, and horses. “Because I know horses and grew up with them, I can impart a sense of the animals’ gesture and character,” she notes.
Kersey says she admires those painters “who can do anything” and admits she is floored by the many accomplishments of Michelangelo: “He could paint, sculpt, and draw.” And, not surprisingly, she admires historic California plein-air painters such as Percy Gray and Granville Redmond.
The splendor of the California coast takes center stage in her piece LATE AFTERNOON, a large studio painting of a sweeping shoreline. “It’s that long, low light resulting in a rich, warm glow. It’s something that happens on the coast at certain times of the year,” she observes. One of the painting’s strengths is its strong diagonal division of space: the red-orange hue of the beach and cliffs offset by the expansive blue defining the ocean and sky. “I like a strong value contrast,” she says.
Today, the young girl who once hung her drawings next to her mother’s paintings at amateur art shows has exhibited and won awards at such prestigious venues as the San Luis Obispo Plein Air Painting Festival, the Rocky Mountain Plein Air Painters National Show and Paint Out, and the Carmel Art Festival Plein-Air Exhibition. Asked to define her painting style, Kersey says she considers herself a “painterly realist” and also comments on the general effect she is trying to achieve: “I want to provide a sense of peacefulness. I want to offer the viewer that sense of peace and beauty found in the natural world.”
Laurie has exhibited from San Francisco to New York, including Sedona, Martha’s Vineyard, Santa Fe, Carmel and Pasadena. She has been mentioned in Southwest Art Magazine, USArt Magazine and has been a winner in the Artist’s Magazine Annual Competition.