The Page Bond Gallery is pleased to present: Diurnal Rhythms, a selection of new work by Karen Blair. An opening reception for the artist will take place at the Page Bond Gallery on Friday, May 3, from 6:00 to 8:00 pm. The exhibition will remain on view through Saturday, June 1, 2019
Why paint?” asks Karen Blair, musing upon the evolution of the rendered image. From the marvels of ancient cave paintings, the master works of da Vinci, to the shifting tableaux of Bill Viola’s digital portraits in the new media age, Blair views her role as a contemporary artist as that of a mediator of sorts—to “sift through the accumulation, rearrange it and make it both coherent and beautiful.” Given the shifting scales of historical, aesthetic and technological continuities, Blair sees her paintings as “hieroglyphs” edited from the surplus of our present cultural overload. Blair’s works evolve over months, layering information in measures that are “added, obscured, and reemphasized”. In this way, Blair’s paintings exist as narratives shaped by the same mechanisms of History in our informational and visual worlds.
Born in Winston-Salem, NC, Blair received a BFA from the University of North Carolina. Her work is included in many public and private collections including, Dominion Energy, Levine Cancer Institute, Markel Corporation, Owens & Minor, Phillip Morris USA, and Troutman Sanders LLP to name a few. She lives and works on a farm near Charlottesville, VA.
