Artist Kerry Kirkpatrick answers questions about her latest exhibition “Capturing the Light at a recent Q&A held at the Juneau-Douglas City Museum on Saturday. (Jonson Kuhn / Juneau Empire)

Artist Kerry Kirkpatrick answers questions about her latest exhibition “Capturing the Light at a recent Q&A held at the Juneau-Douglas City Museum on Saturday. (Jonson Kuhn / Juneau Empire)

Turning peace into art pieces: Artist’s work takes inspiration from solace of nature

Capturing the Light exhibit runs to Nov. 26

For artist Kerry Kirkpatrick, there’s nothing she finds more inspiring than the energy she pulls from being surrounded by nature.

“I just feel so much power there and energy,” Kirkpatrick said. “I love being in it and moving through it, so that is where I feel most comfortable and what I want to express.”

“Capturing the Light” is the name of Kirkpatrick’s latest exhibit, which opened on Friday, Nov. 4 at the Juneau-Douglas City Museum and runs to Nov. 26. Kirkpatrick sat down with city museum curator Cory Woodall on Saturday, for a free, public Q&A session to learn more about Kirkpatrick’s exhibition while answering questions from the audience.

Kerry Kirkpatrick stands by her painting ‘Ripple,’ one of many paintings included within her latest exhibit “Capturing the Light” on display at the Juneau-Douglas City Museum from Nov. 4 through Nov. 26. (Jonson Kuhn / Juneau Empire)

Kerry Kirkpatrick stands by her painting ‘Ripple,’ one of many paintings included within her latest exhibit “Capturing the Light” on display at the Juneau-Douglas City Museum from Nov. 4 through Nov. 26. (Jonson Kuhn / Juneau Empire)

Kirkpatrick has been a Juneau resident since 1995, previously living in Petersburg and Seattle where she graduated from the University of Washington with a degree in landscape architecture. After graduating, she moved to Alaska and started a landscape and graphic design business, along with commercial fishing, and continued perfecting her passion of painting.

According to Kirkpatrick, “Capturing the Light” is a collection of new watercolor, acrylic, and oil paintings, which is a medium she started working with in 2020. Kirkpatrick said that the inclusion of oil paintings in her latest exhibition has allowed for her to explore a more expressive medium and to challenge herself as an artist.

“I’ve always been working with watercolor pretty much my entire life, but there were things I wanted to start doing with paint that I really couldn’t accomplish with watercolor and acrylic, and oil were allowing me to do that,” Kirkpatrick said. “I especially love oil painting because it has such a nice fluid quality to it.”

While Kirkpatrick said she can find herself immersed within almost any landscape, she said there’s something particularly special about the wilderness of Southeast Alaska that makes her feel especially blessed.

“We live at the edge of this great community, I love Juneau, and for me I love that we’re roadless, it adds a whole other dimension to living in this place, but being surrounded by the wilderness, being on the water, the trees and mountains right down to the water, just such a definition to our lives and being out in it, using all of your sense out there and being in the presence of wildlife, too, it’s incredible,” Kirkpatrick said. “I’m not a religious person, but it’s a religious experience to be in the presence of all of that and to feel it and to see it going by, I mean we hear politics every day and we hear about COVID and whatever issues that we’re dealing with, but you walk outside and it’s like it’s this steady thing, it’s there every day, it’s doing its thing with or without us and that just gives me so much peace.”

• Contact reporter Jonson Kuhn at jonson.kuhn@juneauempire.com.

More in News

The Norwegian Cruise Line’s Norwegian Encore docks in Juneau in October, 2022. (Clarise Larson / Juneau Empire File)
Ships in Port for t​​he Week of Sept. 23

Here’s what to expect this week.

Devil’s Club provides shelter for angel wings along the Dzantik’i Heeni Loop Trail on Sept. 16. (Photo by Deana Barajas)
Wild Shots

To showcase our readers’ work to the widest possible audience, Wild Shots… Continue reading

(Michael Penn / Juneau Empire File)
Police calls for Saturday, Sept. 23, 2023

This report contains public information from law enforcement and public safety agencies.

(Michael Penn / Juneau Empire File)
Police calls for Friday, Sept. 22, 2023

This report contains public information from law enforcement and public safety agencies.

(Michael Penn / Juneau Empire File)
Police calls for Wednesday, Sept. 20, 2023

This report contains public information from law enforcement and public safety agencies.

Maria Norman, 80, guides her wheelchair/walker toward the front patio space of the senior living building at the St. Vincent de Paul of Juneau complex on Teal Street on Saturday. About 30 Juneau residents visited the complex during the morning as part of a Friends of the Poor Run/Walk to raise money for the facility and its programs. (Mark Sabbatini / Juneau Empire)
A step at a time toward housing stability

Annual fundraising run/walk for St. Vincent de Paul Juneau highlights improvements, ongoing needs.

A marijuana activist holds a flag during a march on Independence Day on July 4, 2021, in Washington, DC. Members of the group Fourth of July Hemp Coalition gathered outside the White House for its annual protest on marijuana prohibition which the group said it dated back to more than 50 years ago during Nixon Administration. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Alaska relaxes rules for marijuana ads, allows free samples

Alaska Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom has signed new regulations that allow the… Continue reading

A rainbow appears over downtown as residents check out rows of electric vehicles at Juneau’s EV E-bike Roundup Saturday afternoon. (Clarise Larson / Juneau Empire)
Capital city celebrates 10th annual Juneau EV and E-bike Roundup

Juneau’s electric vehicle growth among fastest in the country, organizers say.

U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, gives a live speech via video from Washington, D.C., to attendees at the annual Southeast Conference meeting in Sitka on Thursday. (Screenshot from video by Southeast Conference)
Murkowski, Sullivan warn of domestic, foreign threats to Southeast Alaska’s economy

Issues from Russian seafood imports to ferry funding cited by senators during Southeast Conference.

Most Read