Throw another bird on the Paradise
Robust formal elements and an unequivocating thrust of ideas are the primary aspects with which one is presented in Karen Papacek's work from this exhibition. In the less than fashionable style of expressionism, the paintings are figurative representations of the private/public dichotomy - a criticism of both social attitudes to personal issues and personal stances on broader public and social matters. The work is critical in the sense that it is by no means a passive observation.
An immediate impression of the show is of vigorous, expressive line, saturated colour and a highly contrasting tonal range.
The philosophy behind the work is equally clear and concise as the mark-making. The catalogue includes notes on the show; not annotations to specific works, but general concepts that underlie the work. The final statement is: "... this exhibition is about identifying various degrees of conditioning and the ideals for which we as a society, and individuals, strive ."
The questions of domestic and global excess are reiterated throughout the work. The artist comments to the effect that excesses and abuses perpetrated on the domestic level are without question carried through to the individual's public lite and are then manifested socially and environmentally, and vice versa.
Although less symbolism is used in this exhibition than the previous show, the work contains a clear and consistent symbolic vocabulary: The use of images of dead birds is both visually evocative in that that slumped form of the bird's neck and body has a strong impact of lifelessness whilst implying a previously unparalleled dynamism or vitality. Roses, women, kings, queens and interchangeable house-shapes and tombstones are some of the most predominantly recurrent symbols in the often icon-like