New Works 2008

PPOW is pleased to announce "New Works," the fourth solo exhibition of paintings by Karen Arm. For over a decade, Arm has been engaged in an ongoing dialogue between micro and macro, mark and object, structure and line. This new body of work displays Arm's intricate technique of painting that explores the vastness of existence and sight.

Arm works within an oeuvre of painting, spearheaded by other notable women such as Vija Celmins and Agnes Martin, where accumulated mark making produces work that explores the idea of transcendence through nature. Many of Arm's new paintings are inspired by the night sky and include images of star fields, clusters, and galactic spirals that stretch far beyond the edges of the canvas. Water is also a repeated theme, the detailed surface of the canvas quickly becomes liquid. Arm achieves this by creating alternating layers of intricate marks and luminous grounds, where color suggests emotion or a sense of place. Her meticulous process of layering and glazing is essential in creating the dynamism in these meditative works. 

The obsessive virtuosity displayed in her paintings creates infinite spaces which focus on surface and depth. Through this balance of chaos and order, earthly and astral, Arm creates portals into the sublime.

In 2005 Arm's work was included in the exhibition "A Very Liquid Heaven" at the Tang Museum in Saratoga, NY. In 2002 Arm was the recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts Award for Painting. Her paintings have been exhibited in numerous galleries nationally since 1993 and are part of various private and public collections in The United States and Europe. She lives and works in Brooklyn and Shelter Island, NY.