Karen Laudon
Oils and Mixed Media
My recent work grows out of a natural evolution rooted in the human figure and moving continually inward into the literal internal body and inward into an abstract world where external and internal meet. Here, opposites coexist as dual parts of one whole, each holding the seed of the other within itself: birth and death, pain and release, growth and disintegration, expansion and contraction, attraction and repulsion. The tenuous nature of the boundaries between these becomes apparent, as between human body and animal body, between body and landscape, between the visceral and spiritual. My painting process allows these boundaries to be explored in a very fluid way, one image growing out of the other and relationships evolving over time, enabling imagination to articulate my understanding of those things which defy articulation by other means. Abstraction allows difficult and paradoxical material to be experienced in a more sensory way, so that as by osmosis, it might seep into the mind. It allows for elements of intimacy, mystery, and the unknowable, which are at once comforting and disturbing.