About botanical watercolor artist P.A. Kessler

About

THE ARTIST

To walk into P. A. Kessler’s studio is to cross a threshold of consciousness. Everything here bares witness to the beauty of nature. Her display cases are filled with the creatures and creations of an unspoiled world - nest and bugs and hives. The walls are lined with her portraits of nature’s art - orchids, gourds, floating feathers, a humble onion. There is purity of purpose and vision: to celebrate the living world she loves.

That skill has earned Pam a international reputation as a botanical artist. Exotic orchids are the primary subject of thirty-five-year career. But it is her creative delicacy that makes her flowers dance and flirt with the viewer’s imagination. Each image evokes mystery and breaks out of the mundane to the magical. Within the perfect renderings, I find stories of intrigue: a treacherous hornet’s nest; a Mother bird revisiting her empty nest; a committee meeting among pitcher plants. Pam’s work is an invitation to a relationship between the observer and the art.

She shares one of her favorite quotes: “The art of the plant portraitist has always been tossed like a ball from the scientist on the one hand and the lover of the beautiful on the other. It is not a pure art because it has to try and reconcile two conflicting ideals and try and effect a compromise.”

Pam is a graduate of Wayne State University’s Fine Art Program. Her work has appeared in ‘Orchids’, the magazine of the American Orchid Society and in the book ‘Contemporary Botanical Artists’, by Dr. Shirley Sherwood. Her work is included in the collection of Dr. Shirley Sherwood and the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, Carnegie Mellon University.

As an artist and a woman, Pam embodies the delicacy and grace that is central to her life and work. Her life is spent as an observer and witness to the beauty of nature and her art is a celebration that elevates and expands our world and ourselves. As my friend, she has taught me that discipline and tireless dedication are as essential to her art as her innate artistic gift.

Diane McMahon

BIOGRAPHY

P. A. Kessler (Pam) grew up in the southeastern corner of Michigan and now makes her home on one of the sea islands off the coast of South Carolina. She acquired her formal art training at Wayne State University, where she earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. Pam is a member of the American Society of Botanical Artists. Her work has been featured in major watercolor exhibitions and is well represented in many corporate and private collections, including Dr. Shirley Sherwood's collection of contemporary Botanical Art and the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation.
P. A. Kessler is an accomplished artist with a refined sense of draftsmanship, composition, and watercolor technique. Her artistic insight - a far more elusive quality - is what has earned Pam a growing international reputation. Her plants are rendered with a delicacy and grace that faithfully capture their essence. She does not portray beauty in isolation, but as a revelation of interaction between observer and observed. An active response will yield a depth of vision denied the passive observer.

Exhibitions

21st Annual International, American Society of Botanical Artists,
Glynor Gallery, Wave Hill, New York

Solo Exhibition, ‘Response to Nature: The Watercolors of P. A. Kessler',
Coastal Discovery Museum, a Smithsonian Affiliate, South Carolina

Solo Exhibition, ‘Response to Nature’,
Walter Greer Gallery at the Coastal Carolina Arts Center, South Carolina

Art Imitates Life Botanical Art,
Johnson & Johnson World Headquarters, New Jersey

The III & IV Annual International Juried Botanical Art Exhibit,
The Horticultural Society of New York

Flora 2000 ASBA International Exhibition,
Longwood Gardens, Kennet Square, Pennsylvania

7th International Exhibition of Botanical Art,
Glynor Gallery, Wave Hill, New York

7th International Exhibition of Botanical Art,
Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, Carnegie Mellon University, Pennsylvania

“Art and Flower Festival”
Detroit Institute of Arts, Michigan

Annual Michigan Water Color Society’s Exhibitions

Kentucky Watercolor Society’s National Exhibition

Watercolor Society of Alabama Annual Exhibition

Annual Open Exhibition, Catherine Lorillard Wolf Art Club, New York

Annual Mid-year Show, Butler Institute of American Art, Ohio