Krupp creates gently flowing symphonies of color, as if they are wisps of sounds, sights and even compositional suggestions. She is the conductor, and with her brushes and acrylics seems to cascade from one end of the canvas to another, leaving a trail of reds, yellows, white, blues and green. Is what you see, really what you see? Or is it left to interpretation?
“My journey as a painter over the past decade has gathered momentum in ways I never anticipated. Professional recognition – which I have never sought – in the form of increased solo, group and now Museum shows has given me encouragement. And I believe my expressive potential has begun to mature.”
“My work today is abstract but with a core of representational underlay. It may not be clear even to me, but there’s something in there. I work in acrylic, oil stick and pastels, and also in collage, using primarily paper and fabric. I paint in two distinct regions of the United States. Summers are spent in the unsparing light of my country’s heartland, in Ohio. Its rhythms are essentially stretched and flattened: massive farms on vast plains. These have made themselves felt in my abstract nature paintings. And yet it is impossible to ignore the rugged, sometimes shattered, verticals of its urban landscapes as well.”
“These are most clearly seen in my Canton Museum of Art show from 2013, called Restoration, Recycling, Remembering. Winters pass on the shores of Southern Florida, a place of altogether softer, more flowing sensibility. The night in all its aspects – from the neon palaces of Miami Beach to the dark mysteries of the swamps – is important here, as are the early mornings. Nature has always been my most fundamental inspiration. Gardens of many kinds, simple and complex, are behind the organizing principles of my work. But in recent years, nature as a larger force has begun to influence my paintings more directly.” Barbara is once again represented in this region by the Westport River Gallery.