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Chris Kannen

@chriskannen

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Another new ish painting from this spring. 16 x 12, acrylic on canvas. Feels like there are living organisms in this one. by @chriskannen

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3 months ago

New-ish small painting, 12 x 16 inches. A lot of acrylic on canvas. Experimenting with different kinds of depth. I let more of a surface build up on this one. Also started making the marks smaller and smaller. by @chriskannen

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3 months ago

Painting from late 2025, acrylic on canvas, 72 x 108 inches by @chriskannen

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3 months ago

49 trips around the sun today by @chriskannen

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3 months ago

Here are some pages from my latest watercolor book, book number 12 in the series I started in 2016. All of the paintings are from observation, and in this case I chose to paint the ocean, the prairie, and the mountains in equal proportion through the book. I started on spring break 2024 and finished in Summit county Colorado last weekend, an intermittent project for sure.

My goal is to find something paintable, then see how the moment develops and let the painting take on a life of its own. The end product is sometimes less about the place and more a recorded mixture of mood, attention, changing conditions, and skill level at the time. In other words, they often don’t work out the way I imagined :)

In this book I sense a bit of drift. A brokenness. Maybe a lackadaisical handling of the subject and material in favor of letting things go their own way more so than usual, however that ends up looking. Or maybe I’m just tired. So, does this make them more real? Or do they give you something unexpected or more open? In any case there is reliably interesting territory between intention and result in painting…

All of the books are on my website. I hope to make more. by @chriskannen

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4 months ago

I walked for a few days through a nearby wilderness area last week. Lots of soft steady rain, blowdowns (fallen trees), birdsong—owls, kinglets, thrushes, juncos, robins—and miles of pine and spruce fir forests interspersed with aspen and the area’s famous weathered pink granite rock formations. Spring green aspen are equally as pretty as September aspen. Hot take? The geographic high point of the route was the shoulder of Bison Peak, a gentle alpine stretch that was socked in the day I walked over it, the enveloping moisture bringing out a beautiful aromatic piney scent from the Bristlecone Pines lining parts of the trail. So nice! The beaver dam was also a highlight, and formed an interesting contrast with the shocking beetle kill clear cut along segment 4 of the CT. by @chriskannen

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5 months ago

a painting from 2025

acrylic on canvas, 52 x 68 inches by @chriskannen

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7 months ago

Made this last year, acrylic on canvas, 36” x 48” by @chriskannen

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9 months ago

Another night sky-inspired painting from last year, 21 x 30 inches. I want these paintings to feel dark and light at the same time.

In my pine needle paintings I used a liquid resist to cover the surface in round-ish egg shapes, then painted marks around the shapes to create some negative space, and echo the loose pattern seen on snow-covered pine forest floors. In these newer paintings, I inverted the palette. In this one I like how the black “star-less” shapes read as both voids and bodies potentially eclipsing more “background”. by @chriskannen

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a year ago

48 x 72, acrylic on canvas

From early last year by @chriskannen

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a year ago

Made this painting early last year. It’s time to post! 52” x 68” acrylic on canvas by @chriskannen

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a year ago

Some new pages in the book. Feeling rusty. Not much painting lately. But, winter is the most energizing season for me. (Note: these were painted from the car 🩵) by @chriskannen

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2 years ago