Karen Kunc

Order

October 2-31, 2009

Order presents new prints created in response to living in and conceptualizing on natural and human processes that affect environment, that contrast ways and means, and outcomes for life. Karen Kunc (b. 1952) observes and responds to visual sensations of iconic sources – gridiron scaffolding, repetition of window frames, decaying fragments; she conceptualizes patterns - of channels and pathways as flowing movement or pulsing energy; sounds evoke concentric rings suggestive of rhythmic growth or expansion; aerial perspectives offer viewpoints of suburban sprawl and mining wastelands. The artist considers the imbalances of architecture over nature, of human efforts related in scale to mountain ranges. Kunc’s images are comparative metaphors, as she finds beauty and strangeness in equal measure, as poignantly meaningful concepts on dwelling, gathering, cultivation, networks, encroachments. Her overarching question - on how things come about - is envisioned here as the natural and unnatural order of things.

Within the last several years, Kunc has deliberately provoked her senses by living and working in New York, Vancouver, Italy, Egypt, all around the country, and in Nebraska, her home. She has been evolving the ongoing “Urban/Rural Divide” series, and has moved beyond. Her series leads her to understand that the “divide” is never so clear-cut, and the inevitable order of life is fluid, with shared concerns and sympathies. Therefore, her visual metaphors continue to be related to life cycles, webs and linkages, even as “Darwinian” order prevails.

Karen Kunc is the Willa Cather Professor and Professor of Art at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She has done many artist residencies around the world and has received numerous awards. Kunc’s work can be found in many public collections including the Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio; Univeristy of Washington, Seattle Washington, and the Jyvaskyla Art Museum, Finland.

• Previous exhibitions: Visionary Evidence, October 2005

• Related woodcut artists: Chris Papa, Jean Gumpper, Annu Vertanen, Robert Patierno, Gordon Mortensen, Carol Summers, Finnish Woodcut Artists

Additional Work Available