Vulnerably Defiant Beauty

Written By: Donna Rhodes | Issue: August 2023

The savannahs of Africa and our mountain locale have something in common. They both stake a claim to the inimitable artist and journalist Colleen Kastner. Colleen was born in South Africa and eventually settled in the U.S.

Six years ago, she and her husband discovered Sapphire, fell in love with it, and made it their summer home.

While Colleen has roots in Connecticut and North Carolina, she is often a journeyer. But wherever she goes, she’s a preserver of Beauty, a re-kindler of spirit, and a reminder of the splendor in everything we see – even (or perhaps especially) the marvelous imperfections all around us.

“Flaws,” she says. “can be most intriguing and educational.”

Colleen has a unique view about art and its remarkable powers. She says, “Both African wilderness and Carolina mountains are amazing, healing places.”

She’s convinced art/creativity and the stunning scope of God’s natural creation are spun together. They’re therapeutic, like her work: scenic, soothing, inviting. When one plunges into her layers of paper, print, ink, wax, charcoal, oil, acrylic, fiber, maps and story, one experiences an internal bloom of joy and healing.

In early childhood, Colleen was denied the arts. She was encouraged to immerse herself in more practical endeavors. So how did she find her passion?

She says, “I was a little lost, until I discovered story-writing and journalism. Story telling is core to therapy. It links to art (images and icons), which lead to human connection, and ultimately, healing.”

She explored and employed the above, not only to help herself through difficult times, but to serve as a mental health therapist for others. “I was doing work with domestic violence survivors,” she says. “I organized an arts therapy group with women who used art (drawing, painting, journaling) to self-examine and heal past trauma. The arts were essential to their developing resilience and healing. Art can unlock deep mysteries in our psyche (those afore-mentioned intriguing flaws) that language simply cannot reach.”

Dive into Colleen’s mixed media marvels.  Let her abstract and impressionist treatments of figures (powerful, defiant, resilliant, yet vulnerable) or landscapes (skies, valleys, canyons, rivers) call you to your heart’s home.

See her work and join her community online at colleenkastnerart.com, or on Instagram at colleenkastner. If you missed seeing Colleen’s work at the Art League of Highlands-Cashiers Summer Colors Fine Art Show in Sapphire last month, look out for her at their Fall Colors Fine Art Show in Highlands in October.