Karen Holland at Dr. Terry Grover Dental

On , In Artscape, Dr. Grover

#205 1626 Richter St, Kelowna, BC V1Y 2M3

Karen Holland – Artist Statement

Maintaining a sense of fluidity is essential to my current work.  I love to work out of the conventional bounds, break the rules, and toy with visual ambiguities.  Spontaneous energy flows in an atmosphere of fewer constraints for me.  At the core, remaining in-the-moment feeds my imagination.

Being in-the-moment also fosters an awareness of challenges faced by people and places in our society.  I am haunted by the depths of despair I see in our human experience, just as I am inspired by our resilience.  I seek to reflect the deep contrasts of hope and anguish I feel through the light and dark contours of my work.

Leaving the comfort zone of purely representational work allows for a more intuitive creativity.  My challenge is to remove judgment or editing during the process, and keep reflection for after a flurry of gestures and paint applications.  Layering one burst of energy over another results in greater depth and vibrancy.  My venture into mixed media and abstract work has opened new exploration for me in the way I approach positive and negative space, shape, line and texture. Imagery in my work is often inspired by the natural world, sometimes as it appears juxtaposed with man-made structures.