BIO:

Karen Conway has recently returned to painting. In the early 90’s, while studying in Paris, she was an apprentice to Gregory Masurosky.  She has worked in the arts in various capacities: curator, gallery director, registrar, researcher and now artist. Karen holds a graduate certificate in Museum Studies from Harvard University.  In addition, Karen has a MA in Feminism and the Visual Arts from the University of Leeds, UK, where she studied with Griselda Pollock.  There she was greatly influenced and continues to be inspired by the artists, art historians, and professors she encountered from around the world.

STATEMENT:

I have found it imperative to return to painting after many years. My work attempts to explore emotions and feeling where language fails me. The act of painting becomes a concrete experiment to work through the sensation that is still placed in a material process. The abstraction allows me to explore the extreme light and dark of color and feeling. 

The ideas of light and dark also carry over to my daily view of sea and sky. Living on Aquidneck Island, the surrounding environment became infused in my inner-life and thus my work. Light through the water and on the water can always transfix me, though like my shadow I can never actually capture it, but I love trying. Whether it is the depths of my emotion or the light and water that play upon the canvas as a metaphor, my painting reflects the combination of environment and feeling to which I hope others can connect