Karen Silve

Rejuvenations: My Bouquet

May 21 - July 3, 2021

“Sometimes beauty alights as gently as dewdrops on the morning grass; other times it has to climb and claw its way up a dark crevasse until against all odds it emerges into the light of day. That latter brand of tenacious, hard-won beauty is central to the origin story of Rejuvenation: My Bouquet, Karen Silve’s sumptuous and inspiring new exhibition at Calloway Fine Art & Consulting.”

Exhibition Statement:

Inspired by Karen’s own tumultuous journey with cancer, recovery, and isolation - flowers, delivered in a continuous flow by friends and loved ones, became a symbol of hope and rejuvenation during the unforeseen year that was 2020. "I loved watching these expressive faces of the flowers as they opened up, then finally drooping, the petals drifted down to the floor like colored ashes. Ironically, another bouquet of flowers appeared on my front porch every time a few flowers in my bouquet died. I rejuvenated the vase by adding the new flowers to the old ones. It gave me a sense of hope, rebirth and renewal. It was so relevant." That such beauty could emerge from a year so terrible on both the micro and macro levels is astonishing.

"Eventually she began painting this bouquet éternel in luscious opulent acrylics on canvas—not literal depictions but composites of visions, memories, photographs, sensations, inhalations of revivifying fragrances borne on air and rising spirits: hydrangea, peonies, poppies, roses, and a dozen-dozen more, rendered in effulgent gestures that never spilt over into surfeit or indulgence, never overworked, but looser, freer, minimalist, luxuriant but also raw. The images are poetic, lyrical, narrative, rhythmic with brushstrokes broad and discreet—elegiac like the richness of life itself as it careens from peak to trough and back again. The flowers are neither feminine nor masculine, but inflected with gray tones that speak to human tenacity, not gendered posturing, like the shades of gray in daily life, bookended by our polarities." (Richard Speer, Karen Silve at the Confluence of Courage and Hope, 2021)

Biography:

Karen Silve was born in Springfield IL. Her mother, who is the daughter of an artist and a French chef, exposed Silve and her three siblings to art through visits to museums and classes. She was involved with art through high school and went on to receive a BFA from the University of Alabama, whose painting faculty, including the Italian artist Alvin Sella, had a strong abstract orientation. A formative experience, especially for her color sense, was the summer Silve spent painting the landscape in France at the Leo Marchutz School in Aix-in-Provence.
In 1993, Silve moved to Portland, Oregon, worked in graphic design and began to explore the painterly process in a series of meditative paintings. Silve has acknowledged the role of personal experience in shaping her work. Crucial to these paintings is their physical immediacy and their connection with the natural world.
Silve has exhibited her work extensively in solo exhibitions including at the Portland Performing Arts Center, the Forsyth Center Gallery at Texas A&M University, the Visual Art Center of Northwest Florida, the Tuscaloosa Performing Arts Center, and the West Linn Public Library in Oregon. Recently, her artwork has been acquired by two large art collections, one of which specializes in female mid-century abstract expressionist artists.