Artist Biography

Artist Statement or Goals:

Karina has enjoyed utilizing her imagination throughout her life and considers the development of hers paramount to her happiness. Her desire to use her senses to manipulate and explore the world around her has enabled her to come to understand Nature as essential to all of our well-beingness. The peace and harmony that lie within the forests, oceans, lakes, skies, mountains, etc... Illustrate the importance of symbiotic interaction. Nature contains all the secrets of a happy and fulfilling life if we ask with an open mind the deepest questions in our hearts and listen with ears aligned to the many voices that she sings to us in. Karina listens to the voices and conveys the impressions to works in wood, stone and printmaking. The works impart the spirit of the Nature she loves as well as the essence of her day-to-day experience. She has seen that her experiences are similar to 'everyman's' and hopes that her works will inspire people to unearth Mother Nature in their own lives and come away with a greater sense of self awareness and partnership with all.

Biography:

Karina Lantzy was born in Denver, Co. in 1960. Since her childhood she has always enjoyed any avenue of artistic endeavor that was presented to her. In her high school years she made the decision to commit to art as a career. Immediately opportunities became available to her through other artists. She worked in pottery off and on for various craftsmen for four years. Karina was then privileged to meet and apprentice with Robert Parker; a sculptor and painter living in Coaldale, Co. The woodworking skills were her focus for the majority of four years, but she also applied herself to stonework, painting and some clay sculpting as well.

Over the 15 years she and her husband have lived in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of Colorado. Their love of nature and the mountains has culminated in a respect for the forests and the ancient and beautiful woods gathered from the area floors. Karina believes that her work reflects a partnership of wood and spirit and has learned that one must listen to Nature with more than just our ears. It is a language we have known since the beginning of time and yet in modern society we chosen to separate and alienate ourselves from it. Through exhibitions of her inspired works she hopes to share the love and language of a forest life with those observing her works.

Karina currently does art shows around Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah where she has won awards for sculpture and woodworking. She and her husband/ assistant Tom have enjoyed the success of their small business for over thirteen years now. The expansion of Earth Gems is ongoing as she introduces "Karina's Nature", a new direction for the artist in two-dimensional work; Linoprints utilizing accumulative and reduction type printmaking techniques.