Artist Yaz Krehbiel

Collected Artwork

About Yaz Krehbiel

Painting serves two primary functions for me: to experience presence in the world and to engage in personal freedom. It is a freedom not to do things, but to be.

The starting point for each painting comes from a specific experience of light, what Monet often referred to as the atmospheric “envelope” of the landscape.

I use the Impressionist working method of painting out-of-doors from direct observation.  For me, looking and receiving is a means to transcend oneself through an experience of deep focus on the outside world.  I find this way of working the most freeing.  But unlike the outdoor painters of the 19th century, spontaneity and the aesthetics of the sketch are not primary ambitions.  I am drawn to the plastic values born in the Modernist era.  I search for abstract, color and tonal shapes that have equivalences to the forms and spaces of the subject.  I also look to create shapes with a duality between the flatness of the picture plane and the three-dimensional space of the seen world. Within this formal structure I try to convey the unnamable experiences of beauty and transcendence. Realizing the plasticity of this “envelope” can take a few hours or several months

I paint almost entirely from direct observation of the landscape. I find the experience of close, extended looking and thoughtful response to be a great challenge, but also the most freeing experience.  For me, deep focus on the external world is a means to transcend the limitations of the self for a kind of awakening and a deeper presence to our experience. The possibility of transformation is a subject in both my painting process and in the landscape subjects I choose to paint; it is my form and my content.  Light and atmosphere's ability to transform the physical is my most valued metaphor for conveying our longing for deep freedom and oneness with the world around us and beyond.