Michael Kareken
Kareken_HouseandUniverseII.jpg

Shifting Visions / 2022-2024

This series of watercolor monotypes was produced in collaboration with the Highpoint Center for Printmaking in Minneapolis. The work focuses on the landscape where I grew up in the Pacific Northwest.  The monotypes were made by painting with watercolor on a thin polyester plate which was then transferred to a sheet of paper on the press.  I used both additive and subtractive processes to make the images, putting down washes and marks that were allowed to dry before being lifted and revised by re-wetting the plate.

Information about the series is available from The Highpoint Center for Printmaking.

 

Shifting Visions / 2022-2024

House and Universe II, conte on duralar, 20.5” x 28.5”

Shifting Visions is a series of drawings and paintings depicting overlapping and fragmented interior and exterior spaces. The work was inspired by looking out of window views at night and noticing the way the reflections of the lighted interior spaces interrupted and obscured the view of the darker scene outside. Based on observations of specific locations, the elements are imaginatively rearranged and woven together in a way that is intended to feel at once cohesive and disjointed. The images fuse together near and far, past and present, different places and viewpoints, and different seasons and times of day. In building the compositions, I used what I observed in the window reflections as a guide, blurring edges to connect near and far, dissolving forms into shadows, and establishing multiple light sources to create shifting focal points within the compositions.