Karen Bartone Art Studio | Available Paintings

Pondering Collection

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About the Pondering Collection

Painting as the Story of Human Perception. 

​The Pondering Collection began as a personal inquiry into perception and place. What started with years of painting the woodland pond outside my studio has grown into a long-term exploration of how sustained observation shapes our experience of the natural world.
These paintings are not simply records of familiar landscapes. They explore how attention changes what we see, revealing that every return to a place offers something new. Through the spherical format, the work invites viewers to slow down, look closely, and experience the landscape as a place of reflection, presence, and discovery.


​Origins​
The origins of the Pondering series can be traced to an early interest in curvilinear perception and alternatives to traditional linear perspective. While studying with artist Susan Stephenson in the early 2000s, I became interested in ways artists represent lived visual experience rather than fixed geometric space.
A breakthrough came in 2008 during a fellowship residency at Chautauqua Institution under the mentorship of Stanley Lewis. Asked to paint on a nontraditional surface, I began creating landscape paintings on my grandmother's wooden bowls. The curved surfaces provided a way to investigate perceptual space and atmospheric perspective beyond the constraints of the rectangle.
Later that year, I transitioned from bowls to flat circular panels, allowing the investigation to continue while focusing attention on the spatial and perceptual questions at the heart of the work. Those early experiments became the foundation of the Pondering series, which continues to evolve today.
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sHistory & Development of the Pondering Collection
Developed through more than two decades of sustained observation and investigation into curvilinear perception and pictorial space, the Pondering Collection has evolved from early experiments with curved supports into an ongoing body of circular landscape paintings. The timeline below traces the work's development alongside its exhibition, award, acquisition, and professional history.  In addition to institutional acquisitions, paintings from the Pondering series have entered numerous private collections over the years.​
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2000–2003 – Became familiar with the work of artist Susan Stephenson around 2000 and was deeply influenced by her use of curvilinear pictorial space and alternatives to traditional linear perspective. In 2003, Bartone left her career as a social work director when her employer would not accommodate the schedule needed to study painting with Stephenson. That decision became a pivotal turning point, leading directly into her subsequent development as a professional artist and educator.
2008 – Fellowship residency at Chautauqua Institution under the mentorship of Stanley Lewis. The first circular landscape paintings were created on wooden bowls as an exploration of curved perception and atmospheric space.
2009 – First circular painting exhibited in her MFA graduate exhibition at Blue Mountain Gallery, New York City.
2010 – Honorable Mention Award for First Circular painting, Juror Alyssa Monk, CWA National Exhibition, Eli Whitney Museum.
2010 – Early circular painting exhibited at the AKUS Gallery, Faculty Exhibition, Eastern Connecticut State University.
2011 – Completed the first flat circular landscape painting, establishing the format and foundation of the Pondering series.
2014 – Eastern Connecticut State University acquired a painting from the Pondering Tondo series.
2016 – Pondering Tondos solo exhibition and artist talk, Middlesex Community College, Middletown, Connecticut.
2016 – Awarded an AAUP (American Association of University Professors) research grant for professional development to spend one month in France conducting independent research into the history of plein air painting. Based in Paris, Bartone studied museums, historic sites, and landscapes associated with the Impressionists, establishing a model for future self-directed research in landscape painting and art history. The residency included a week in Barbizon, painting independently in the Forest of Fontainebleau.
2019 – Pondering solo exhibition at Three Rivers Community College. The college acquired a painting from the series.
2022 – Pondering I received First Prize and Pondering V received Second Prize in a juried exhibition judged by Amy Kurtz Lansing, Curator, Florence Griswold Museum. The recognition subsequently led to a solo exhibition of the series at the Clinton Art Society.
2023 – Pondering solo exhibition, Clinton Art Society.
2023 – Invited by the Florence Griswold Museum to create a commemorative artist palette inspired by the Pondering series for the museum’s permanent collection.
2024 – Invited by the Florence Griswold Museum to create an illuminated lantern sculpture for Lanterns Aglow, incorporating three circular landscape paintings inspired by the Pondering series.
2024 – Paintings from the series selected for the 79th Annual Connecticut Artists Exhibition, Slater Memorial Museum.
2024 – Representation begins with Six Summit Gallery, Connecticut, and Meridian Art Consulting, Boston.
2025 – Monhegan Ice Pond 2024 exhibited in the Eastern Connecticut State University Faculty Exhibition, accompanied by an artist talk, ECSU Art Gallery, Willimantic, Connecticut.
2025 – Painting from the series selected for Holding Space, juried by Roxanne Smith, Curatorial Assistant, Whitney Museum of American Art.
2025 – Beneath the Canopy received the Inspired Vision Award, juror Jeanne Ciravolo, Director, Alexey von Schlippe Gallery of Art.
2025 – Monhegan Ice Pond Return 2025 exhibited in the Eastern Connecticut State University Faculty Exhibition, accompanied by an artist talk, ECSU Art Gallery, Willimantic, Connecticut.
2026 – Pondering Ice Pond, Monhegan Island selected for the Clinton Art Society Winter Juried Exhibition, juror Laura Leonard, Curator, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art.
2026 – Beneath the Canopy selected for Patchwork: Connecticut Artists Consider 250, Florence Griswold Museum.
2026 – Temporary Basin selected for the Connecticut Women Artists National Exhibition, ECSU Art Gallery, Willimantic, Connecticut; juror Jeanne Ciravolo.
2026 – Tending Place selected for the Madison Art Society Open Juried Exhibition, Madison, Connecticut; juror David Rau, Curator, Florence Griswold Museum.
2026 – Monhegan Ice Pond 2024 selected for exhibition at Norwich Art Center Gallery; juror Professor Bryan Flinn, Central Connecticut State University.
​2026 – Three works spanning 2008, c. 2016, and 2024 selected for Echoes of the Circle, ECSU Art Gallery; Curator: Soojin Kim, Associate Professor and Assistant Department Chair.

THE LITTLE PONDERING COLLECTION

Karen Bartone Art Studio | Available Paintings