ARTIST STATEMENT
My ongoing relationship with nature flattens out into planes of color, mark and movement. An underlying structure holds my delicate emotional attachment to a piece of sky, water, night or moment of transformation. As marks and layers of color, value, pattern and light accrue I re-experience the vision and emotional connection to nature. It’s about chance, and the urge to capture a moment and the vision of that experience.
My prints are conceptually and physically embedded in reciprocity. They are built by the mutual relationship of concealing and revealing, plan and chance. As I investigate properties of nature with marks and inky flats of color, I also explore properties of paper and metal by folding & embossing by hand or with the pressure of the press. These layers are built upon until I have captured a momentary balance of chance with a fugitive experience of nature.
BIO
After teaching in private and public colleges and universities in the Midwest for five years, Karen moved to Maine where she has lived and worked ever since. She has taught Printmaking, Drawing, and Bookmaking at the University of Maine @ Augusta since 1987. Her print works have been exhibited nationally and internationally and she has received numerous grants and artist residencies including NEFA Fellowship, NEA & Arts International Travel Grant, MAC grants, Karl Hoffer Society, Anderson Ranch, Fundacion Valpariso and MARC Residencies. Her travels have informed her creative work and influenced the media used.
Karen Adrienne is also the owner and director of Artdogs Studios and Circling the Square Fine Art Press in Gardiner, Maine. Artdogs Studios creates a community of working artists with five artist day studios and one artist residence. Circling the Square Fine art Press is an open access press that builds a community of print based artist in Central Maine and provides a non-toxic studio and a gallery for display of their work. The press has participated in local and international print exchanges including the Solisquoy Press in Orkney Scotland, and Estamperia Quitena in Quito, Ecuador.
