Elizabeth Karsch

I work in response to the energy around me, which shifts dramatically between seasons where I live on the east end of Long Island. My paintings are the result of physical responses to emotional experiences, and each piece is a visual record of intangible things - the deep feelings and fleeting thoughts running through me as I consume news, music and podcasts each day are layered and woven into my work through marks of charcoal and strokes of paint. As a result, my compositions tend to be complicated and colorful, teetering between abstraction and recognizable forms.

My love affair with markmaking has multiple facets, but I most correlate it to the inadequacies of spoken or written language.  As a stutterer, words often fail me, but making a mark provides an immediate and direct release of energy - a means of communication beyond the vocabulary of spoken language. My compositions develop through an intuitive and physical process of gesture and patience. I rework my paintings many times, leaving little trace of the original and resulting in images that seem to breathe lives of their own.

Motherhood shapes my work, both as a subject and as a condition of its making, and a recent breast cancer diagnosis has led to more figurative ideations throughout my compositions. After multiple surgeries and homone-blocking treatments, I am living in a reconstructed and unfamiliar body, and my newest work is reflective of this physical yet incorporeal sensation.

Madison Fender Photo