Today we’d like to introduce you to Karen Azarnia.
Karen, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I am a painter, a curator, and currently, teach in the Department of Painting and Drawing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. I completed my undergraduate studies at the Rhode Island School of Design and my MFA at SAIC. I make and exhibit my work professionally. I also previously interned at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and served as the Gallery Director at the Riverside Arts Center Freeark Gallery, helping to build the exhibition program. It has been a long road, a cumulative process of hard work with much learning along the way. It’s also an incredible privilege to be on this path, and I am grateful to my friends, colleagues, mentors, and family who have supported my endeavors along the way.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Being a professional artist is one of the most challenging career paths I can imagine for myself. There is no set path. Each artist takes a different approach to carve out a career, and no two are the same. We often wear many hats and balance many activities. In my case, the most challenging part is a striking equilibrium between studio time, teaching, curating, and motherhood. I have two small children, and that frequently inserts another level of unpredictability. But I’ve become smarter in so many ways: pairing down to essentials, time-management, and identifying and using resources wisely. There are times we crash and fail, and times we succeed grandly. It’s the journey along the way that is so rewarding, the sense that despite the occasional failure I’m self-actualizing to the best of my ability and continuing to grow as an artist.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
I am a painter. My studio is located at Mana Contemporary Chicago in the Pilsen neighborhood. My training comes from traditional figurative painting, and as I’ve continued to expand and define my practice I have also embraced abstraction. Currently, my work explores the dialog between memory and painterly mark. Using the painting as a means to express emotions such as love, loss, intimacy, and tenderness, I’m also interested in the use of a mark to record a physical gesture from the body. Working in oil and acrylic the canvas surfaces are poured, wiped, scraped and layered. The painterly marks slow the process of looking, to signify the passage of time.
As a feminist, I’m especially proud of the group exhibition I’m participating in now titled “Women Painting Men” guest curated by Gwendolyn Zabicki at the Riverside Arts Center Freeark gallery. It’s a timely show which examines and recontextualizes the way we look at men. The exhibition received a generous review by KT Hawbaker in the Chicago Tribune which can be viewed here: www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/museums/ct-ott-0525-see-it-now-20180521-story.html There is still much work to be done for women’s rights, and I think it’s important to try and develop an alternative model to patriarchal modes of dominance and aggression, a model which champions empathy, intimacy, and vulnerability.
What were you like growing up?
I am Armenian-American and grew up in Miami, FL. A true melting pot, exposure to these myriad cultures suggested to me there are multiple perspectives and viewpoints in the world, which helped lay the groundwork for me to think outside the box and become an artist.
As a child, I loved to draw. I would invent lavish, joyful, fantasy worlds full of color and characters. While I excelled in many areas, I fell in love with world-making and never looked back. It was a surprise to my family when I decided to attend art school, but they were fully supportive, for which I am deeply grateful. My father is a scientist and inventor, and my mother a nurse. I soaked in the habit of careful observation, of both the world around us and the human body itself, which has carried over into my perceptual-based painting practice as well as figurative work.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.karenazarnia.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/karenazarnia/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kazarnia
Image Credit:
Michael Sullivan
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