The Art Portfolio of Karen Muntean
Dia de los Muertos/War is $$, mixed media on canvas
Karen Muntean is an artist currently based in Victoria, BC. In her practice, Karen works primarily in abstraction, creating works in a variety of experimental styles that combine bright colour and organic form to produce an otherworldly aesthetic.
Washi Quilt for Ella, mixed media on canvas
I’m really enjoying Karen’s recent series of Washi Quilts. These works combine a variety of media on canvas, with the picture plane divided neatly into a number of squares, just like a traditional quilt. Each of Karen’s Washi Quilts sticks to a fairly cohesive colour scheme, with the artist apparently settling on an overarching tone and adding complementary details throughout. These works invite close inspection, with small, fine details added throughout -- patterns contained within the squares, and imagery that snakes across the entire canvas, tying the whole composition together.
Karen utilizes a similar method of overlapping images and shapes throughout the rest of her portfolio. Series like Harmonics, for example, take on almost collaged aesthetic, with shapes painted in crisp, opaque layers of acrylic.
