Karen Carson

Karen Carson presents a new body of work, comprised of paintings on linen and paper with huge brooding skies and long deep horizons. In the vein of her series of fires, horses, and winds, these new skies hover above landscapes populated with the silhouettes of dancers.

In these paintings there are many people engaged with many different types of dance, performance and actions. Carson employs her superb painting technique to deftly activate the figures and the skies. The people are waltzing, two stepping, break dancing, jumping, running and embracing. From the most loving and romantic gestures to ecstatic and violent ones, these people are expressing a spectrum of emotions as big as the skies above them. They seem to come from diverse sources like classic movies and entertainment, and also cults and strange communities. Couples attract and repel each other, just as the skies’ furious swirls and gusts attempt to push and repel the figures below.

These are paintings filled with the exuberance and anxiety of weather. At times putting us under assault and at other times in complete awe – nature figures heavily in this work. Carson’s technique moves her figures and weather as expressively as she moves her brush.