Arts + Literature Laboratory presents Rupture, an exhibition by Karen Laudon, on display from Tuesday, November 19 through Saturday, December 21, 2024.
Exhibition statement:
Art making is a process of finding a meaningful, integrated balance between idea and its physical manifestation. This series of works, Rupture, is about the tension between dualities: facade/truth, construction/destruction, beauty/ugliness, death/renewal, flatness/dimensionality. These pieces began with frustration and despair at the state of our society, with the ugly underbelly that has become fully exposed in recent years. Looking for catharsis, I took an older series of paintings, Seven Sorrows, and smashed into the panels with hammers and weights. Working from the back side of the panels, I pressed encaustic through to the other side, where it oozed onto newly painted imagery referential of natural elements: water, earth, body, plant life. I think of these paintings as wounded, metaphors for our times, both personal and social. The ambiguous nature of the images begs the question, whether these are images of death and destruction, or growth and rebirth?
When Karen Laudon learned that her Rupture series would be on display at the Arts + Literature Laboratory, she invited poet Emilie Lindemann to create poems in response to her paintings, which she described as being “created by smashing holes into wood panels, so that encaustic paint and wax could be pressed through from the back side, and into/onto/through the painting on the front side.”
Limited copies of a chapbook titled Rupture Readings featuring poems by Lindemann and several images from Laudon’s Rupture series will be available for purchase and for viewing in the gallery. The chapbook includes prompts for ekphrastic responses to the exhibit for viewers who wish to create their own poetry or writing inspired by Laudon’s show.
An opening reception for current exhibitions by Jessica M. Gutiérrez, Issis Macias, Nastia Craig, Matthew Braunginn, and Karen Laudon, will be held on Friday, November 22, from 5:30pm to 8:00pm.
