Ed Kamuda
Established artist Ed Kamuda (1943 -2020) created abstractions that reveal a reverence for nature and a mystic bent that link him to Northwest School of painters such as Guy Anderson, Morris Graves, and Mark Tobey. The Pacific Northwest forests, Cascade Mountains and fields of rural Washington, especially the Skagit Valley were the inspiration for his works. He is known for his use of simplified shapes that symbolically and pictographically convey the essence of the natural landscape and the human experience. Form and line are reduced to primitive, bold elements, sometimes playful, but ever sophisticated.
Kamuda worked with a palette knife rather than a brush, building up and scratching away oil pigments before finishing the surface with a wax varnish to enhance and give texture to the surface. This method resulted in lively, facetted surfaces that complement his bold lines and shapes, and serve to reinforce his interpretation of nature as strong and wondrous.
Exhibiting in Seattle since 1978, Kamuda was a self-taught painter who was born in New York but describes his roots as being in the Pacific Northwest. In 1995, he was honored with a solo exhibition at the Museum of Northwest Art. In 1999, he was included in the Whatcom Museum of History and Art’s Beyond the Horizon: Artists of the Rural Landscape. His paintings are included in the collections of Microsoft, SAFECO, Zymogenetics, several schools through the Washington State Art in Public Places Program, and many private individuals. Harris Harvey Gallery, formerly the Lisa Harris Gallery, has represented the artist since 2001.