Born in Seattle, Washington, Karen Woods studied art in Florence, Italy and at the California College of the Arts where she received a BFA with high distinction in 1987. Since 1994, Woods has been living and working in Boise, Idaho. While in Boise, she found herself drawn to the co-existence and interaction of natural and constructed elements in her surroundings. Increasingly, her work focused on the urban landscape: cars, traffic signals, road construction, empty lots, intersections, and power lines. Her most recent work includes a series of paintings of a rain-spattered windshield that frames a streetscape; the perspective is that of the driver. This unique and compelling compositional technique creates a sense of space in front of the surface of the painting–the interior of a car–without actually depicting that space. The observer is drawn into the narrative through the simple act of viewing the painting; there is a sense of being at once enclosed from and connected to the urban environment. Creating a dynamic push and pull between the foreground and background, Woods expertly negotiates the relationship between the highly detailed, light-reflecting raindrops, and the blurred landscape beyond. Taking cues from both Eastern and Western landscape traditions, Woods aims to create an intimate space at any scale. “I paint—in the realist tradition… when I’ve been struck by the beauty in the ordinariness of my commute. These images are the “lyrical suggestions” that compel me to paint… the reward lies in capturing and expanding the space, time, and movement of a moment in everyday life, and to reveal its accompanying emotional weight: its anticipation, reflection, isolation, longing, and transcendence.” – Karen Woods