Fans of fantasy art will love Gabriela Klessen’s Studio K

Craig Bakay | Oct 03, 2019

By Craig Bakay

Sometimes it pays to go to the end of the road.

Case in point, for this year’s North Frontenac Back Roads Studio Tour, the most remote location was arguably Studio K on Buckshot Lake Road.

For the past 18 years, this has been the home of Gabriela Klessen (“we were in Ompah for three or four year before that,” she said).

And if you hadn’t heard of Klessen, you’re probably not alone. She doesn’t have a website, she doesn’t do many shows (“I did do Fantasy in the Forest this year,” she said). And, she lives rather out of the way north of Plevna.

But, she does have a number of clients, mostly from Ottawa and Toronto, and she’s currently working on three comissions.

And it’s easy to see why she has people asking her to paint for them.

First of all, she’s an excellent painter, using a realistic style that retains the painterly aspects of acrylics and none of the trickery that photo-realism often over-does.

Second, she has a unique vision that fans of The Hildebrandt Brothers or other fantasy artists have made quite popular in recent years.

“When I was in art school (in Germany) I had secondary courses in global mythology,” she said. “Not so much books though, I’m interested in what people tell me.

“I’ll often hear a story and say ‘that needs a painting.’”

And she delivers on that, with dragons and fairies (the fairies are often hidden in flowers), wizards and warrior women.

Lately, she’s been producing a lot of First Nations themed portraits.

“I did a set of totem animals for a person and they were in a show, so others asked for something similar,” she said.

She has no problems with those kinds of commissions, she said. However, “This is a good challenge.

“I sit with people for 30 minutes and they expect you to paint their life.”

But, sometimes she just paints for herself.

“I’ll admit to an obsession with Red Riding Hood,” she said. “I just sold the last one I did so now I have an excuse to paint another.”

There was one landscape in her studio on this tour. It was somewhat Group-of-Seven-ish, but she doesn’t really care for landscapes all that much.

“I paint things with eyes,” she said.

And, whether it’s animals, fairies, or warrior women, her treatment of eyes do draw the viewer in.

Take her latest, The Huntress, who stares out at the viewer, in much the same fashion that Leonardo’s Mona Lisa does.

“My father’s Italian,” she said. “We lived in Florence for two years.”

She said that living essentially in the woods of North Frontenac hasn’t hurt her career in the slightest. In fact, it’s been good for her.

“The winters are long here so it helps you focus and keep your mind on what you’re doing,” she said. “If I lived in Town, I’d probably go for coffee more often.

“People will find you, and we get a lot of tourists.”

She said people can call her (613-479-2982) to arrange a studio visit or just drop in to 5815 Buckshot Lake Road.

She does have an email address: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

“I check my email once a week down at North of 7,” she said.

For this show, Klessen shared her space with potter Trina Gorr.