pierogi 2000 press: karen arm

Art Papers

Karen Arm:
Paintings and Drawings
Pierogi 2000
Brooklyn New York
January 9 - February 9

Karen Arm's paintings and drawings are textural invitations - reflected, brightened, magnified windows onto environments that are at once familiar in the representation of natural forms, strange in their abstraction of nature, and highly personal in their obsessive detail. Created from whorls and lines of paint applied with single brush hairs, her images are intricacies living within expanded spaces. At a distance they are as placidly simple as the cool minimalism of Agnes Martin, and just as absorbing and endless up close.

The downpour of tiny drops against a navy background is a curtain of white rain against a deadly, obscure sky. A blue canvas is a portrait of water rather like netting, soothing and protective. A green-based canvas, an expanse of grass with a prism of green shades, is so dense and layered as to beg for an afternoon nap.

Arm uses color to reflect the mood in her meticulous work. All of the six paintings in this show are untitled, but clues to what the artist might have named them, and might be representing, are provided by six counterpart drawings titled stars, drops, grass, root, ocean, and branches. The drawings are small, created with a base of marks applied with white acrylic paint and then covered in charcoal. Without color, the drawings are more abstract and have lost some of the individuality of the paintings, until one views them in close proximity. One is forced, in fact, to be close to these drawings because of the flurry and abundance of their duo-toned details.

There is a perceived moment of recognition when faced with some of Arm's paintings that comes merely from the colors she uses - green for grass, blue for ocean water, white for stars or rain. More surprising are those paintings whose colors do not necessarily represent what is there. Especially alluring in this sense is an orange and yellow painting, so bright that one expects to see only flames upon closer inspection. It materializes as a field of orange laced with a network of thin, yellow lines, like the glowing filaments of a light bulb. These abstracted, naked branches grow in a triangular shape that alludes to other naturally feminine formations.

The danger in such obsessively detailed work is that it can often be hermetic, coming alive only within the confines of the canvas and the focus of the viewer's eye, sealed from any metaphorical or physical external relevance. Arm transcends this completely; there is the very physical sense that these unframed paintings expand beyond the canvas, the impossibly thin tendrils and countless marks reaching out and growing from each other - lines woven into a cushion grown out of the earth. Each of them is like a small slice of a larger mass that exists, like a blaze or a storm or an expanse of green field, outside of and away from what we as viewers may see in a gallery space. Arm has created an almost three-dimensional texture with her brushstrokes that evokes an impression of incredible depth and immersion, rather like a microscopic view of a swatch of fabric or a nest found randomly on the floor of a forest.

Allusions to nature are also what endow these works with a significance beyond aesthetics. Their seeming expansion beyond the canvas and organic shapes and colors indicate the importance of the natural and the environment to the artist. A painting of whitish curls against an eggplant background could be a ark cavity of the body threaded with vessels and fibrous tissue; it could also be a root system, as its drawing counterpart suggests. One of the achievements of these mesmerizing works is that they do provide a subtle conceptual link from the body to the environment. On a purely visual level, these paintings are vibrant and dense with texture and color, an inflamed and enigmatic brand of minimalism. They breathe with the space and air found between all of the artist's carefully placed lines. (5/98)

MICHELLE J. TIRADO

P I E R O G I 2 0 0 0
177 north 9th street brooklyn, ny 11211 718.599.2144
noon to 6p friday through monday and by appointment
pierogi 2000 is an innovative art gallery in williamsburg, brooklyn, new york

	karen arm paintings and drawings 9 january - 9 february 1998 Art Papers Karen Arm: Paintings and Drawings Pierogi 2000 Brooklyn New York January 9 - February 9 Karen Arm's paintings and drawings are textural invitations - reflected, brightened, magnified windows onto environments that are at once familiar in the representation of natural forms, strange in their abstraction of nature, and highly personal in their obsessive detail. Created from whorls and lines of paint applied with single brush hairs, her images are intricacies living within expanded spaces. At a distance they are as placidly simple as the cool minimalism of Agnes Martin, and just as absorbing and endless up close. The downpour of tiny drops against a navy background is a curtain of white rain against a deadly, obscure sky. A blue canvas is a portrait of water rather like netting, soothing and protective. A green-based canvas, an expanse of grass with a prism of green shades, is so dense and layered as to beg for an afternoon nap. Arm uses color to reflect the mood in her meticulous work. All of the six paintings in this show are untitled, but clues to what the artist might have named them, and might be representing, are provided by six counterpart drawings titled stars, drops, grass, root, ocean, and branches. The drawings are small, created with a base of marks applied with white acrylic paint and then covered in charcoal. Without color, the drawings are more abstract and have lost some of the individuality of the paintings, until one views them in close proximity. One is forced, in fact, to be close to these drawings because of the flurry and abundance of their duo-toned details. There is a perceived moment of recognition when faced with some of Arm's paintings that comes merely from the colors she uses - green for grass, blue for ocean water, white for stars or rain. More surprising are those paintings whose colors do not necessarily represent what is there. Especially alluring in this sense is an orange and yellow painting, so bright that one expects to see only flames upon closer inspection. It materializes as a field of orange laced with a network of thin, yellow lines, like the glowing filaments of a light bulb. These abstracted, naked branches grow in a triangular shape that alludes to other naturally feminine formations. The danger in such obsessively detailed work is that it can often be hermetic, coming alive only within the confines of the canvas and the focus of the viewer's eye, sealed from any metaphorical or physical external relevance. Arm transcends this completely; there is the very physical sense that these unframed paintings expand beyond the canvas, the impossibly thin tendrils and countless marks reaching out and growing from each other - lines woven into a cushion grown out of the earth. Each of them is like a small slice of a larger mass that exists, like a blaze or a storm or an expanse of green field, outside of and away from what we as viewers may see in a gallery space. Arm has created an almost three-dimensional texture with her brushstrokes that evokes an impression of incredible depth and immersion, rather like a microscopic view of a swatch of fabric or a nest found randomly on the floor of a forest. Allusions to nature are also what endow these works with a significance beyond aesthetics. Their seeming expansion beyond the canvas and organic shapes and colors indicate the importance of the natural and the environment to the artist. A painting of whitish curls against an eggplant background could be a ark cavity of the body threaded with vessels and fibrous tissue; it could also be a root system, as its drawing counterpart suggests. One of the achievements of these mesmerizing works is that they do provide a subtle conceptual link from the body to the environment. On a purely visual level, these paintings are vibrant and dense with texture and color, an inflamed and enigmatic brand of minimalism. They breathe with the space and air found between all of the artist's carefully placed lines. (5/98) MICHELLE J. TIRADO



	P I E R O G I 2 0 0 0 177 north 9th street brooklyn, ny 11211 718.599.2144 noon to 6p friday through monday and by appointment pierogi 2000 is an innovative art gallery in williamsburg, brooklyn, new york