New Works on Paper

Karen Arm
New Works on Paper

November 18 – December 22, 2011
Opening Reception: Friday, November 18, 6-8pm

P•P•O•W is pleased to present, New Works on Paper, our fifth solo exhibition with Karen Arm. Known for her intensive process of painting, this new series are all watercolor or acrylic on paper. In contrast to her larger scale acrylic works on canvas, this new paper series is more intimate in scale while still possessing dense detail. Arm refers to nature in her imagery as a catalyst for something more ambiguous, more abstract and as a point of exploration. This new series focuses on sun bursts, star fields, blood pools and water, each pushing and pulling the visual field in intricate accumulations.

Arm sees her works as capturing an unseeable moment in time. Her work heightens nature by making the intangible visible. What she is representing is unavailable to the human eye but the idea of the form and element is made precise. Due to a new method of working, the accumulation of dots and lines that Arm makes is spontaneous, as she is working without being able to see the final result. Arm thus creates randomness in her obsessive process. This new way of working also confronts the idea of controlling yet also releasing the mark making.

Through all of these works, Arm is seeking to capture something elusive, ephemeral, and enigmatic. The mandalic and transformational quality of Arm's works is intentional in the creation of and also the finished work. For Arm, the works possess action in their paused state. They are like the moment of fission, of an energy that could be destructive or creative. These many ambiguities create a heightened tension that pushes and pulls the surface and depth of space, even at the intimate scale and simplicity of paper.

Karen Arm lives and works in Brooklyn and Shelter Island, NY. In 2005 her work was included in the exhibition, A Very Liquid Heaven at the Tang Museum in Saratoga, NY. In 2002 she received 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. Arm is the managing editor of and also included in The Book Of Symbols: Reflections On Archetypal Images (The Archive for Research in Archetypal Symbolism), 2010, published by Taschen.