ARCHIVED 2021:
Duality of Nature | Karen Lind
THIS EXHIBIT WAS ON VIEW AT THE PATCHOGUE-MEDFORD LIBRARY IN JANUARY – FEBRUARY 2021
The Patchogue-Medford Library is pleased to present the solo exhibition, Duality of Nature, featuring the artwork of Karen Lind. On display are selections taken from the artist’s Flower Prints series as well as four largescale, abstract-expressionistic paintings. Despite the diversity of artistic style and material used, each line of work shares the same source of inspiration: nature. A life-long gardener who modeled her own garden after Claude Monet’s, Lind spends hours surrounded by nature and is continuously inspired by the changing colors and light that she experiences throughout the day. Each work of art is a stimulating experience that interacts with the senses.
Virtual Gallery
About the Exhibit
Lind’s Flower Prints are truly multifaceted. Each work begins as a collage of large, tempera painted, pieces of paper with the colors inspired by the flowers in the artist’s garden. She then hand-cuts each petal and leaf, and arranges her cut-outs into a beautiful bouquet of flowers. After working out her compositional arrangement, Lind than photographs the work and adds her finishing touches digitally.
In the print, Summertime, the artist beautifully arranges a bouquet of blue hydrangeas, yellow sunflowers, and red-orange daylilies in a red and violet, leaf-printed vase. The busy composition not only juxtaposes color, but line and form as well. Each petal and leaf is heavily outlined with flowers springing in every direction from the vase. A flower rests diagonally on the lower left-hand side of the table, while opposite that, in the top right-hand corner, a dragonfly flutters out of frame. The work is brimming with life and inspires notions of summer, reminding us that warmer weather is only months away.
For her large, abstract paintings, Lind paints en plein air and takes cues from the father of the Abstract Expressionism movement, Jackson Pollock. In his famous drip paintings, Pollock painted from above, vigorously flinging paint off his paintbrush ,which dripped onto his massive canvases. As the movement’s name suggest, the emphasis is on abstraction and the formal elements of painting (ie. color, line, and form) as well as the emotional response to the subject from both the artist and audience.
In these works, Lind allows herself to respond spontaneously to the environment of her garden. The natural changings of the wind, light and color that occurs throughout the day is the essential subject of these dynamic works. Despite the rapid brushwork, with splatters of paint dripped from above, the artist appears to create some notion of order through the colors she uses. In Zinnias, presumably inspired by the flower of the same name, the artist incorporates darker greens, blues and black in the lower half of her canvas while the top section contains passages of pinks, yellows and light blue. What at first glance may appear to be a jumble of colors haphazardly placed inevitably becomes an abstracted view of a very natural, real-world field of flowers that the artist responded to as the conditions of her environment changed over time.
Installation Shots
About the Artist
Karen Lind is a fine artist from Long Island, NY. She is a member of the Firefly Artists of Northport, NY. Her artwork has been exhibited across Long Island with select exhibitions at East Northport Library (East Northport, NY), Harborfields Library (Greenlawn, NY), and the Cinema Art Centre (Huntington, NY). To see more work by the artist, visit www.lindartprints.com.