According to Tiana Finney of the Santa Fe Reporter, “Shakti Kroopkin’s abstract oil paintings are assertions of visual liberation. Lines sway and curve, squares linger and drift, circles pulse and swell. On an essentially still, 2-D canvas, creating movement is no small feat. Kroopkin’s art comes from an intuitive, almost instinctual depth. Her relationship to unrehearsed process and unrestrained action yields paintings that are fluid and organic. Each of Kroopkin’s pieces is like a new fantasy to escape in, an alternate world of pure shape and color, free of the constraints of logic, gravity and reality.”
The world offers itself to Shakti as an interplay of shape, line and color. “I see things for what they are, first,” the artist explains. “Labels and functions are secondary.” Using oils, india ink, ebony pencil, and oil stick, Kroopkin creates spaces that reveal the luminous spirit that dwells just beneath the surface.
Hans Hofmann, Kroopkin’s greatest inspiration, once said, “When I paint, I improvise…I deny theory and method and rely only on empathy and feeling…In teaching, it is just the opposite, I must account for every line, shape and color. One is forced to explain the inexplicable.” As an educator, Kroopkin also faces this dichotomy. She has taught in many venues including the Santa Fe Art Institute, The Santa Fe Children’s Museum, and the Santa Fe and Chicago Public Schools.
Kroopkin, a graduate of the world renowned School of the Art Institute of Chicago, is delighted to call the Southwest home. She says, “I love the light, the vast amount of space, and the Santa Fe aesthetic.” Santa Fe’s Ken Canfield (a leading collector of Taos Modernist works) hung Kroopkin’s work along with great artists such as J. Ward Lockwood, Agnes Martin, Wolcott Ely and Lawrence Calcagno. Canfield praised Shakti in his gallery literature as “the youngest and one of the most talented painters in the show.”
Internationally collected, Shakti Kroopkin's paintings exhibit nationally. She is currently represented by Sarah Jessica Fine Arts in Provincetown, MA. Her work is published in two books, Shakti Kroopkin, Selected Works 1996-2009, and A Published Gallery. Please check her website for recent and upcoming show and publication details, www.shaktikroopkin.com.
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