I have a new show coming right up - in fact, too darn fast. I had grand plans of having a full new group of 11 paintings done for my show called "The New Normal: Chapters". Well, I got 6 done - good enough! I plan on painting the remaining 5 and getting them up at Prima as soon as possible - since I have a whole 3 months that I get to hang there! Well not me personally, ugh, morbid. My ART that is.
I'm really proud of this group because it's the first time I've had a concrete theme and also my artwork and my style has been steadily improving - with a special thank you to Jane Richlovsky and her classes at Pratt on color and how to put together a group of work, and to Irene Perez-Omer who taught a class on how to "write" a traditional Christian Icon that profoundly influenced both myself and my artwork. I'm not actually Christian, but that did not matter - learning about the tradition and symbolism and prayer and meditation that went into each icon had a definite effect on how I now approach the easel.
The group of work started out with a very simple theme: women and books. But when I started the group, my father suddenly passed away from a heart attack - and the paintings changed. Instead they became a reflection of the stages I am going through (the "chapters") on how I am trying to adjust to not having him in my life. Thus, the New Normal (I stole that phrase from my friend Chris. Hope that's ok. But as soon as I heard it - it was like "yah - that's totally what I'm going through - figuring out the new normal".
For those of you who cannot attend the show personally, here are pictures of the 6 I have done so far.
"Mourning"
11" X 17" Mixed Media Acrylic Painting on cradled birch panel
$350
"Respite"
18" X 24" Mixed Media Acrylic Painting on cradled birch panel
$525
"The Good Mother"
18" X 24" Mixed Media Acrylic Painting on cradled birch panel
SOLD
"The Good Wife"
11" X 17" Mixed Media Acrylic Painting on cradled birch panel
SOLD
"Good Friends"
18" X 24" Mixed Media Acrylic Painting on cradled birch panel
SOLD
"Checking Out"
18" X 24" Mixed Media Acrylic Painting on cradled birch panel
SOLD
(enlarge any of these by clicking on them to get the detail - this specific one is kind of cool because I used grass to weave her hair and stuffed fabric for her quilts, and the dog and cat are my actual dog and cat, Oskar and Stella)
In all of the paintings except "Checking Out" there are vines with thorns, which is a symbol of my anxiety and sadness. "Mourning" includes pieces of the newspaper obituaries my father was in. The snow symbolizes death, and I'm not sure where the Stellar's Jay came from, other than they were around screeching and yelling at about that time."Respite" was about a trip to Kauai my husband and I took soon after my dad passed, and in it you can see that though the woman is crying, she is reaching for the white rose - symbolically reaching for happiness again. "The Good Mother" is about coming back to my daughter (who is no longer an infant, she's 4!) through the grief an anxiety - also about what it means to be a "good mother" and how confusing and hard that is. "The Good Wife" is about coming back to my husband - and how confusing and hard that can be, not just with suffering a painful loss but as a parent trying to reconnect with your spouse! "Good Friends" is about how I could not have gotten through this past year and a half without my friends (you know who you are!). "Checking Out" is how even though I need to go forward and "rejoin" my life, there is a huge part of me that just wants to hibernate and hide.
As I said, there's still 5 more brewing in the studio. I hope you can come and see the work personally if you are in the area!
Karin
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