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| Christy Karll, Swerve, 2018, Oil on archive paper, 17 x 16 1/4 inches (framed), from Barbara Davis gallery |
“...You bitch,” I replied. Surrounded by inspiring architecture. I on the other hand was in Houston..."
A Closer Look at Christy Karll’s Painting “Swerve” - Interview
One day in June, Christy Karll sent a message, “I’m
travelling with some other artists, currently in Vienna, hope to see you when I
return.”
“You bitch,” I replied.
Surrounded by inspiring architecture.
I on the other hand was in Houston. Soon after, I learned about “her mountain.”
Karll had traveled from Vienna to Salzburg, then to the
village of Goldegg where she worked at Malakademie Schloss Goldegg, an art Academy
housed in a 14th century castle. From her
castle’s studio window was a view of the High Tauerne mountain peak of the central
eastern Austrian Alps.
The mountain affected her, Karll told me when she returned
to Houston. “I was obsessed with it. Walking to the studio every day, and standing
at the window, I observed the mountain at all hours of the day, became intimately
familiar with its subtle nuances, its ever-changing light. It spoke to me, I literally felt its energy coming
through me. Several artists
there affectionately referred to it as Christy’s mountain.”
Naturally she painted it.
A painting of her mountain is displayed in Remix of Dreams, a group exhibition at Barbara Davis
Gallery, through September 1, 2018.
Flashback some years.
We’re at the bar in Poison Girl, I’m
drinking bourbon, Karll drinking Chardonnay, and all hell breaks loose if the
Chardonnay doesn’t taste “buttery,” and we opened up to each other. The conversation veered into such topics as multiple
dimensions, time travel, and the ultimate nature of reality. Ever since that moment, I search for esoteric
“stuff” beneath the surface of Karll’s art.
Here’s what I discovered about her mountain:
Virginia Billeaud Anderson: This certainly isn’t the first
time the art bounces off literature. It hurts my head to think about your literary associations
- Jung, Shakespeare, Christian, Tao, Hindu, Buddhist, and Gnostic sources, even
Kepler, which is ridiculously complicated and which I refused to read. You might be the only person on the planet to
make a painting using the four colors that The
Tibetan Book of the Dead asserts practitioners observe when in the Bardo
state between death and rebirth.
Christy Karll: Yes literature. I borrowed from Stephen Greenblatt’s book, The Swerve, to title my new mountain
painting. His description of atomic
theory, what the ancients called atomism, explains how all matter is made up of
atoms and subatomic particles. This resonated,
as you know, I believe in an animating force which runs through everything,
even my mountain. Please remember I’m also
exhibiting a new sculpture, and I took its’ title from the Roman poet
Lucretius’s poem On the Nature of Things,
which anchors Greenblatt’s theme. So,
tell readers, two new pieces at the gallery, Swerve, my mountain, painted on paper, and On the Nature of Things in three-dimensional form.
VBA: Mountain images had been featured in your art for many
years before you found your mountain in the Alps. Focus on the subject has been on-going, in
three dimensional and painting and drawing.
I recall an entire series of paintings and drawings based on jagged
peaks.
CK: True. Mountain
images are deeply symbolic for me, they represent the cosmic force, known as the
chi, while simultaneously alluding to self-knowing and transformation. Here I’m referring to evolution from
incomprehension to enlightened understanding, which is the integration of my
psyche. And remember from our 2014
interview, repetition is integral to my work. I considered my repetitive practice validated
when I saw the Tate’s Rothko exhibition. Rothko said if a thing is worth doing once, it
is worth doing over and over, exploring it, probing it.
VBA: The mountain image isn’t the only highly symbolic motif,
another is the “twig bundle,” also sketched, painted and sculpted, a few splendidly
in bronze. The way I see it, your personal
iconography is fundamentally a tool to focus the mind on that primordial energy,
which I once saw described in the Vedas as “Pure Consciousness.” I imagine you felt comfortable in India when
you exhibited there in 2015. In a place congenial
to broader contemplation. Tell me more
about Goldegg Austria.
CK: Wonderful. Such
a pleasure to concentrate on art without distraction. It served as the perfect residency for
me, not unlike when I was studying painting in school. I was able to complete quite a number of
drawings and paintings.
VBA: I’m moved by your composition’s fluid brush strokes, as
well as its’ tonal contrasts. Dark and
neutral passages are interrupted by warmer purplish-plum tones, decisively
placed yet delicately applied.
CK: I blended colors to create the plum you mentioned. Overall, I began with rough pencil sketch
marks, then smudged with my finger, then painted with strokes of oil paint
and used medium to thin pigments.
VBA: Focus on the painting’s construction brings home the
fact that on the most basic level, deep love of nature’s beauty moved you to
paint a mountain. It takes balls to do
that Christina. Some in the contemporary
art environment are openly hostile to traditional representation with emphasis
on aesthetics. It’s considered aberrant to
desire beauty.
CK: Unfortunately, it’s often the case that if it’s not
shocking or disturbing or vulgar, or full of overt commentary, it’s not going
to receive attention. Don’t get me
wrong, politically provocative work is important and can be valuable, but nothing
is shocking anymore. Mine is more
an aesthetic practice although my artistic interests occasionally brush
against social issues and the environment.
I hope many viewers will be touched and open to art for art’s sake. Like Barbara.
Barbara Davis had already planned to include my sculpture in her
group show before I went to Europe, then when she saw my new painting she
decided to include it also, which is clearly due to her sensitivity.
VBA: We will have to invite Barbara Davis to join us the
next time we meet. Although it’s hard to
imagine that fashionable lady in a dive like Poison Girl.
CK: Oh, she would enjoy that.
www.christykarll.com
Barbara Davis Gallery
www.barbaradavis gallery.com
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