“Potent Poppy” watercolor at the Plum Door Gallery
FEATURED ARTIST – ELLEN KAIDEN — By Brooksie Bergen, In Style Magazine: February 2005
Artist, Ellen Kaiden, whose work is on exhibit at the Plum Door in Towles Court, has a distinctive, vibrant style. Her paintings glow with basic colors and strong architectural forms. Drawn to subject matters that celebrate her love of food and flora, Kaiden creates works that suggest thought and energy. Indeed, viewers are attracted by images that come to live on canvas, images so alive they seem to converse with one another.
Kaiden attended the Philadelphia College of Art and studied with modernist painter, Will Barnett and, later, with award-winning artist, curator and instructor, Johanna Solomon in Bergen County, NJ. When she relocated to Sarasota, she continued to study her craft, attending private sessions with Bradenton artist Herbie Rose, famous for his deft touch with watercolor. A full-time painter who travels extensively, she credits her exquisite handling of that same medium with her attendance at classes at Beaux Arts in Paris, Interlaken School in Lenox, Mass., and the Art Students League and New School in New York City.
Kaiden, who maintains studios in Sarasota and the Bershires in Massachusetts, devotes her free time to the arts. She is chairwoman of two juried art shows: Art in the Park in Sarasota and Feminart in Lenox, Mass., but focuses on presenting her finest work to the public. Aside from the Plum Door Gallery, she is currently featured at the Kaos Gallery in Bradenton, Maureen’s Palm Grill on Longboat Key, the Hayloft in West Dover, Vt., and the Train Station Gallery in West Stockbridge, Maine.
The recipient of countless awards, Kaiden is a member of the Florida Suncoast Watercolor Society, Sheffield Art League,Beckett Art Center and a board member of the Sarasota Art Center. She has had one-woman shows, locally and across the country, including Kaleidoscope WCA, and has taken part in a four-woman show at Sarasota’s Roskamp Center for Art and Humanities.
Still, she considers her participation in a 2004 medical and art humanitarian mission to Russia to be one of her proudest accomplishments.
“My husband, who is a physician,and I were asked to join the Novgorod Alliance, a group that has, for the past 12 years, built relationships of trust and friendship by sharing information and expertise in the medical arts and now, fine and applied arts,” Kaiden explains. “I was one of five American women artists invited,” she says. “I had never participated in a cultural exchange, so the concept was new and exciting. We conducted workshops and demonstrations of our techniques for groups of children, teachers and artists.”
Kaiden continues to add to her impressive resume by winning numerous awards, including a Merit Award at the Art Center of Englewood, for a work provocatively titled “Bump and Grind,” organizing her one-woman shows and sharing her expertise with others. She currently teaches in her Sarasota studio and at the Blanford Club in Blanford, Mass. and welcomes commissions.
Written by : ekaiden
