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  • Title Untitled
  • Category Painting
  • Medium Oil on canvas
  • Medium Abstract, Pacific Northwest (subject or artist)
  • Dimensions 38"h x 26"w
  • Framed Dimensions 38"h x 26"w
  • Year Completed undated
  • Description Green abstract
  • Notes Karin Helmich, born in Jackson, Wyoming in 1943, is a photorealistic painter and founding member of the Pelican Bay Artists’ Cooperative in Seattle, Washington. She received her formal education from Whitworth College in Spokane, Washington, earning a B.A. in Fine Arts in 1965 and studying under Pauline Haas. At Washington State University in Pullman, she earned her M.F.A. in Painting in 1967. She discovered the thrill of painting at age six when she encountered Jackson Pollock in the 1949 LIFE Magazine article, about which she states, “I escaped into those endless swirls and knew I would become a painter.” Her first oil paintings were “disparaged” by her mother and her father who told her, “you’ve got to learn to draw.” So, in response, she restlessly drew. In describing her artistic process, she states, “the act of painting must be a balancing act between the ‘abstract’ and the ‘real.’ I use my own photographs and still life arrangements so that the image represents my own experience; I choose images that haunt me and inspire me.” From 1969 to 1973, Helmich, with Don Barrie founded and actualized the Pelican Bay Foundation Artists’ Cooperative which has dedicated itself to supporting the arts through community, volunteer work, and nonprofit status sponsorship. As an outgrowth of their efforts, the Phoenix School of Art was created.
  • Artist Karin Helmich American Class of 1965 b.1943
  • Credit Gift of the estate of Pauline Haas
  • Location Music 1st Floor
  • Accession Number 2015.0019
  • Status Checked Out
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