I love Ken Resen’s drawings and paintings, there is something definite about them, they have a clear objective, a tenacity that is well executed and composed. Resen is principally a designer who has spent many years creating environmental graphics and interiors for large architectural firms. However, in the past few years he has returned to art and is now painting and drawing full time.
Like all artists Resen’s background and technical experience form the building blocks of his work, his passion lying in the colour interaction as it defines space, form and motion to evoke emotional response. The environment, landscape, at the core of everything he expresses. Natural forms are a common feature in Resen’s paintings and drawings and he frequently abstracts organic forms to create a visual language that is both symbolic and decorative. As he says himself:
Horizon, clearly separating land from sky – the real from the dreamlike – is powerful and reassuring.
After reading a little about Resen’s background and education I found out that he was taught by Josef Albers who taught at the Bauhaus and Black Mountain School as well as being one of the most important abstract painters and theorists of the 20th Century. Resen is a lucky man.