Beyond the Brush: The Story Behind Penguin
Some paintings are made in a studio. Penguin was made in a blizzard. In this short film from Belóved Gallery, artist Akiane Kramarik tells how being snowed in with no canvas led her to a scrap of wood in her family’s shed — and how the cold itself became part of the piece. Watch the video above, then read the full story in her own words.
About the Painting
Penguin was painted not on canvas but on a piece of wood Akiane found in her family’s shed during a blizzard, when she was stranded with no supplies and no way to reach an art store. The frigid conditions left their mark: as the diluted paints met the cold, they dried almost instantly, and traces of the snow itself became embedded in the surface. The result is a true mixed-media piece, shaped as much by the storm as by the artist.
Video Transcript
Beyond the Brush: The Story Behind Penguin Video Transcript
One of the tidbits behind this piece, and the genesis of how it all started, was in the middle of an extremely cold blizzard, and I was out of paints. I could not leave the house. I was literally stuck in the middle of the woods where we were located at the time, and the only pathway that was able to be paved was from our house to our shed.
I opened our shed and it’s three to four feet of snow, and I am so cold, but I really wanted to paint. I could not find any canvases, and I had to go drive to an art store, but I couldn’t. So I went into the shed and I found, in the middle of my dad’s carpentry supplies, a piece of wood. So this painting, Penguin, is actually painted on wood from that shed, that I was able to manage to paint myself out of the snow.
And that’s where all that frigid, cold essence is embedded into the canvas. Immediately, when the paints were diluted and mixed, it dried up, and some of the cold and some snowflakes were embedded. It’s a whole experience, a whole mixed-media experience in this painting. And my fingers were very, very cold that day, for sure.