Marks and Shadows: The Art Portfolio of Karen Smith
Abstracted Landscape (Long Lake), oil and graphite on cradled birch panel
Karen Smith is an artist based in Westminster, Colorado. In her practice, Karen creates sparse abstractions based on a range of subjects including landscapes, people, and objects. Occasionally, the artist also veers into the figurative realm, building up recognizable objects out of carefully placed marks and shadows.
I really enjoy the works in the artist’s Play gallery. These pieces are built up out of a range of mixed media, including graphite, acrylic paint, and crayon, and made on both paper and linen. The emphasis on negative space in these pieces creates a look and feel that’s quiet and contemplative, but at the same time playful -- as the name of the series would suggest.
The front page of Karen's art website
In her Things and People galleries, Karen takes a similar approach to building images, adding lines and shadows that elevate patches of negative space into clear volumes -- faces, bodies, and objects. In Things, the slight diffuse effect of gouache on paper creates a dreamlike, impressionist appearance.
