Featured Artist Sean Kammerlohr

Artist Sean Kammerlohr presents an amazing portfolio dedicated to his great love of nature and trees. See more from this painter by visiting his website.

 

 

I’m known in my local artist community as “the tree guy.” I embrace this moniker as a genuine proponent of Nature and especially of trees. I’ve planted, transplanted, cared for and maintained many trees over the years. I feel a strong bond with them and admire them. Trees are friends.

 

 

In most of my work, I try to portray trees as individuals with character, thoughts, dreams, and feelings. Yes, I will paint barns, bridges, sheep, or pet portraits. I have now started a line of mystical paintings as well.

 

 

But the subject matter that is dearest and most interesting to me is landscapes that showcase unique trees. I use oils in my studio work and acrylics when painting en plein air to personify these beings and bring them to life.

 

 

My aim with this approach is to alter the seemingly prevalent perception that Nature is somehow less than. The hope is that by viewing trees through my lens of personification, people will come to love them as I have and change the way they regard Nature. I believe this is the first step to establishing and sustaining environmentally responsible behaviors. I also hope to one day link my work to direct tree conservation efforts.

 

 

I’m a lifelong artist with no formal training save that which I gained in high school where I was introduced to acrylics and oils for the first time. After graduation, real life kicked in as it is wont to do. Creating took a back seat for a long time.

 

 

Long hours in service and labor jobs are not conducive to creating. But I tried to sneak a session in here and there to keep up my skills. That is how my watercolor Christmas cards started.

 

 

Often having nothing else to give around the holidays, I would paint a Christmas tree or a snowman and have cards made. Now I have a whole line of snowman paintings which have become a sort of chronicle of my guy’s journeys across the earth.

 

 

Fast forward to 2020 when my wife and I moved from Kansas to North Carolina during the pandemic to be closer to her parents. I was unemployed for a while. I really missed the rugged, thorny landscape of Missouri and the wide-open plains of Kansas. So I started painting scenes from the hundreds of reference photos I had taken over the years.

 

 

Now, three years later, I am a member of my local artist association. I have exhibited in galleries as well as throughout the community. My mystical line of paintings is being exhibited in a local shop. I have competed in plein air competitions and even won some awards. Small steps, but for the first time in my life a career in art seems possible.

 

Sean Kammerlohr invites you to follow him on Facebook and Instagram.

 

 

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