20/2/2007
Karen Gunderson
ClampArt, New York
Black Paintings
Black Paintings
ClampArt is proud to announce “Karen Gunderson: Black Paintings.”
After seven years of exhibiting only photography, the gallery is now
expanding its program to include other media.
The exhibition includes a selection of all-black paintings that conjure
vast, mountainous landscapes and also expansive bodies of water through
a deft working of surface alone. Over the past eighteen years, Gunderson
has perfected a technique whereby pictorial illusion is achieved by the
reflection of white light off the raised edges of meticulous brushwork.
Initially the method is difficult to discern—viewers often see the paintings
as sculptural relief. It is only upon closer examination that one realizes
the artworks are actually oil on linen and that the imagery is rendered
through intricate brushstrokes alone. Due to the way in which light
reflects off of the black paint, Gunderson’s canvases sparkle, shift, and
change as viewers move about the artworks. The silvery sheen of the
canvas’ surfaces is the result of the black paint alternately reflecting
and absorbing light. Indeed, as we see a body of water due to the
reflection of light off its surface, Gunderson’s paintings function in
an identical fashion. As the appearance of water perpetually varies
as light plays across its ripples, these black paintings undulate and
glisten when viewed from various angles. Virtually impossible to
depict in photographic reproduction, Gunderson’s art must be
experienced firsthand.
However, while rendered solely in black pigment, Gunderson’s
canvases ironically represent an engagement not with darkness,
but rather light—the artist’s metaphor for hope.
Born in 1943, Gunderson has been painting for over forty years.
Her artworks have been exhibited in galleries and museums worldwide.
In 2001 she won the Second Prize in Painting at the Florence Biennale.
Gunderson’s work is represented in such prestigious public collections
as the Weatherspoon Art Gallery, The University of North Carolina at
Greensboro; the Charles A. Wustum Art Museum, Racine, Wisconsin;
Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, New York City; and Philip Morris,
New York City; among others.
ClampArt
521-531 West 25th Street, Ground Floor - New York