Carl Buttke

Carl paints primarily from nature and from his travels throughout the U.S. and Europe as well as creating abstract nonrepresentational paintings. He paints mostly with watercolor and acrylic. Carl began painting as a child in Wisconsin, followed by a career as a consulting transportation engineer. In 1993 he resumed his childhood desire of becoming an artist by studying at the Pacific Northwest College of Art continuing education program in Portland, Oregon, in the studio of James Kirk for over 15 years, and with Stephen Quiller.

Carl has painted extensively in villages throughout France, including Monet’s Giverny garden, Spain and Portugal. Currently he is painting landscapes of the San Juan Islands and the Pacific Northwest as well as abstract nonrepresentational images.

He has shown his paintings at solo shows at the Crow Valley Gallery, the Orcas Center Lobby Gallery, the Doe Bay Resort and Retreat, the Orcas Island Artworks, the Orcas Island Key Bank, and group shows at the 2008 Plein Air Art Show at the Crow Valley Pottery and Gallery and at the Abstract Art Show at the Orcas Center on Orcas Island, Washington. Previously galleries in Bend and Sisters, Oregon and Ketchum, Idaho represented him.

He lives on Orcas Island, Washington with his wife, Penny.

“My ‘Reflections’ series of watercolor paintings were created to explore and convey the mystery between the real and the imagined - the conflict between the seen and unseen. By painting images of forest reflections on our waters of the San Juan Islands, I want to take the viewer into the depths of the forest with the unease of the dark spaces and bring out the joy of the water reflections”.

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