KAREN SCHWARTZ

ARTIST STATEMENT:

Karen Schwartz is a painter and mixed media artist. Her work is at times abstract or figurative, including large expressionistic portraits done from life or photos. Schwartz often incorporates personal photos, scraps from her painting and drawing practice, as well as images pulled from print media. Through her process and the outcomes produced, she discovers what is on her mind, what implicit experiences have taken root in the form of repetitive images and patterns. She starts her larger paintings with sweeping, energetic marks, generally without a plan but intentionally building something from the initial perceived energy.

The artists work poses questions, leaving room for the viewer to complete or elaborate on suggested meanings. “More than anything, she says I want to land the plane and for it to be in one piece, a barely coherent whole that comes together. 

BIO:

Karen Schwartz is an Atlanta-based artist working primarily in painting and drawing in a range of media. She has had solo exhibitions in Atlanta and New York and has shown work in group shows in the US and abroad. Her work is currently being represented by Jennifer Balcos Gallery in Atlanta. Prior exhibition history includes solo and group shows at Hathaway Contemporary in Atlanta, as well as Life on Mars and David & Schweitzer in Brooklyn. Schwartz's 2015 solo exhibition at Life on Mars Gallery in Brooklyn was reviewed in Hyperallergic, The New Criterion, Tilted Arc, Painter’s Table and The Huffington Post. She also has works in private and corporate collections, and her portrait of Eleanor Roosevelt was acquired by The New-York Historical Society for the launch of the institution’s new Women in History Center. A practicing clinical psychologist and psychotherapist, Schwartz finds that these pursuits inform her artwork in fascinating, sometimes  subconscious ways, and that her creative processes offer curious insights into her work in psychotherapy.