For three decades, Karen H. Salup has been intriguing audiences across the country with her paintings. A native New Yorker, Karen’s work has been featured in several galleries and exhibits throughout Florida and New York with solo shows at Viridian and Jain Marunouchi Galleries. A member of the National Association of Women Artists (NAWA). Women in the Visual Arts (WITVA) and the Palm Beach Water Color Society (PBWS).
Using acrylic, watercolor, and pastels on canvas and paper, Karen H. Salup creates a world that vibrates with bold colors and bright light paired with brushstrokes that evoke a strong sense of movement and energy. Her paintings begin with a theme of nature, but invariably evolve into an imaginative creation that invites interpretation from the audience. Karen’s work is influenced from Impressionism to Deconstructionism to Abstract Expressionism.
2022© Karen H. Salup, All rights reserved.
KAREN H. SALUP, Artist Statement
As a painting evolves I am composing intuitive images that references lean to nature. There is a vocabulary that I have developed, consisting of visual poetry.
These terms such as markmaking, brushstrokes and gestures where known as idiosyncratic visual poetry by the Abstract Expressionist movement creating gestures that bring to the viewer; Forms, Texture, Color and Light.
My work is very much like a process. I find image secondary to the art making. Although abstract in nature, there is an underlying visual order that gradually seems to emerge. Working intuitively, I enter a realm of the unknown where there is more of a calling than any true direction. I seem to be forever altering and adjusting the core of the painting and some invisible reality appears.
I find myself involved in emotional intensity, illuminating the surface.
This self-
Colors by experience, sensation and memory add to a deep sense of place. With each revival to the surface, there are the mark markings, forms, subtleties and sensitivities.