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Karen Gelardi

Karen Gelardi is a contemporary artist whose work spans a multitude of two-dimensional and three-dimensional media. Karen is interested in production, creating 3D prints, fabric banners, collaged mixed media drawings, plastic forms, and large-scale installations. Coupling the feel of a "made" object with the concept of mass-manufacturing and fabrication, Karen creates art that is human and accessible while retaining the imprint of its construction. Karen writes that "the work explores a re-invented nature that comes from being fractured, grafted and re-assembled." To that end, Karen often makes her own customized fabrics and other materials that are reproduced and recombined to create larger pieces.

Gelardi's art is inherently related to the concept of the multiple. When she came to Wingate Studio in 2010 with her friend and collaborator Meghan Brady, her experience with manufacturing as an art-making process immediately suited her to intaglio printmaking. In a single visit, she created a print that relates to the fabric and paper collage constructions from her Saco Bog series, exploring the unique ecosystem of the Saco Heath Preserve in southern Maine. With a black sugarlift aquatint, Karen constructed a network of interwoven lines to create a geometric structure. Adding a second and third plate, Karen filled in specific triangles with colors of varying intensity, anchoring the overall pattern and introducing moments of excitement and subtlety. The ultimate result is a print that could be a quilt, a landscape, or a satellite image of some enormous factory.

For more information about Karen and her fiber collages and 3D work, visit her website. To find out more about New Factories and her collaboration with Meghan Brady, visit the Coleman Burke Gallery NYC, where the two artists showed together during March-April, 2010.

Saco Bog is now available. Contact us for details.