Working from New England along the east coast of the United States, Karla Wave builds her practice around close attention and subtle change. Her work grows out of an ongoing engagement with light, color, and natural cadence, drawing equally from landscape observation, floral imagery, and digital methods. These influences are not separated or ranked. Instead, they move together, blending and reshaping one another as the work takes form.
Wave’s images are guided less by documentation and more by lived experience. Coastal air, shifting horizons, and organic structures appear as impressions rather than fixed views. Time and movement remain present in every composition. By weaving traditional visual references with digital processes, she creates work that feels grounded yet slightly unsettled, as if hovering between states. Her work has been presented through gallery exhibitions, international online museum platforms, permanent collections, and contemporary art publications, situating her practice within a broader dialogue about perception, environment, and visual stillness.
Intertidal centers on the idea of transition. The title refers to a zone shaped by fluctuation, where land and water exchange roles through repetition and return. In this work, Karla Wave translates that condition into an image built from restraint, softness, and continuous motion. The piece does not deliver itself all at once. It asks the viewer to linger.
The composition is guided by a palette of pale peach, warm blush, and soft blue. These tones move across the surface in layered arcs and gentle rotations. No color asserts dominance. Instead, they merge and separate slowly, forming pathways that feel atmospheric rather than architectural. There is no defined center. The eye drifts across the image, following minor changes in tone and light. This gradual movement echoes tidal behavior, where transformation unfolds over time rather than through sudden shifts.
Light plays a defining role, not as illumination but as presence. It appears to rise from within the image instead of striking it from outside. Bright areas are diffused, softened as if filtered through water or fog. Sharp contrast is avoided in favor of gradual transitions, creating a sense of suspension. The surface feels caught between forming and fading, never fully arriving at either state.
Though Intertidal leans into abstraction, traces of Wave’s connection to landscape and floral photography remain. The curved shapes may recall petals, currents, or cloud formations, yet none of these references settle into certainty. This openness is intentional. Wave resists assigning the work a single subject. Instead, she builds a visual field that functions through feeling and perception rather than direct representation.
Digital processes support this approach quietly. Rather than heightening clarity or sharpening edges, they are used to extend tonal range and smooth transitions. The result is a seamless surface where movement feels continuous and unbroken. The digital element does not call attention to itself. It reinforces the work’s sense of slow pacing and layered duration.
The idea of thresholds runs throughout Intertidal. The intertidal zone exists through cycles of concealment and exposure, defined by timing rather than permanence. Similarly, this image occupies a space between legibility and ambiguity. Forms appear, soften, and reconfigure as the viewer’s attention shifts. The work never feels fixed. It responds to sustained looking, revealing different relationships over time.
Emotionally, the piece carries a quiet steadiness. Its calm does not signal stillness but balance. Energy is present, dispersed across the surface rather than concentrated in a single gesture. The gentle palette supports this sense of equilibrium, allowing the viewer to engage without being steered. The image offers openness rather than direction.
Wave’s use of restraint is intentional. In contrast to the visual saturation common today, Intertidal moves at a slower pace. It does not demand attention. It allows itself to be discovered gradually. With extended viewing, patterns begin to surface. Curves suggest cycles. Color transitions reveal structure. What may first seem delicate unfolds as a composition shaped through repetition and care.
Rather than describing a specific place, Intertidal holds a state of being. It reflects the experience of existing between moments, between movements, between forms. Through light, color, and subtle motion, Karla Wave creates a work that encourages pause. The image remains unresolved, much like the shoreline it references, shaped continuously by steady and ongoing forces.
