SHERRY KARVER'S "FLASH FICTION" EXHIBITION COMBINES PHOTOGRAPHY, PAINTING, AND FICTION WRITING - by Nicole Bonoccorso
Sherry Karver isn't your ordinary people-watcher. While many people may wonder about the life stories of those they pass on crowded city streets, Karver takes her observations a bit further than most. She creates her own "biographies" of strangers and shares them in her artwork.
Flash Fiction is Karver's third solo exhibition at the Kim Foster Gallery in New York. The pieces in the showcase remove the anonymity of strangers in a crowd and swiftly incorporate photography, painting and fiction; to create the stories of people we may have never given a second glance.
"We each have a voice. We each have a story to tell. I'm focusing on how we stand out from that sea of sameness and get heard as individuals," Karver shared in a phone interview.
The creative process behind Karver's project is bountiful in detail, employing many steps to incorporate the three mediums used in her pieces. She begins her work by photographing crowds of people in black and white. According to Karver, during this fundamental step, she may capture hundreds of images. Once she has gathered all the images she desires, she heads back to her studio where the real handiwork begins.
Digitally editing the photographs, she adds her own text biographies into the images, creating stories and giving a new life to the people encapsulated forever in the stillness of the frame. The images are then adhered to wood panels, on top of which Karver delicately hand-paints several layers of oil glazes to add color. Yet the production does not end there. The sides of the panel are also painted to create a wrap-around look that matches the photograph. Once everything is dry, Karver finalizes the pieces by covering them in a resin pour, giving them a reflective quality that can create the illusion of the viewer within the work.
"I'm combining the old master technique of oil-glazing with contemporary digital photography," Karver said.
The pieces in Flash Fiction are all images of Grand Central Station in New York City, though Karver has captured many other settings for the same process. However, the setting is obscured, almost becoming irrelevant, as it is the people in motion that are the main focus of Karver's work. The images lose their defined edges with the layers of oil glaze Karver adds, becoming more painterly and blurred. This produces the effect that these strangers could be anyone-even one of us.
Kim Foster, the gallery's curator and namesake, explained her attraction to Karver's work.
"I like pieces with a story, and I'm very text oriented, so I like a good narrative," she said. "Sherry's paintings have a good narrative. As with most of the art in my gallery, there's a story behind it."
"There are several pieces that I respond to for different reasons," Foster added. "She tried something new in a piece called First Impressions. It doesn't have a story on each person, but just one word—one word that says quite a bit about that person. I am also drawn to The Quality of Human Nature, the largest piece in the show, in which there are tons of people and you are looking down on a crowd in Grand Central."
Experiencing Karver's work is interactive and almost voyeuristic; it is as if the viewer is reading multiple diaries, or the minds of passersby. Secrets, as well as quirks, both funny and endearing in nature, are revealed in Karver's writing. The strangers in her work quite literally become an open book.
"By reading it, I think the viewer has a chance to experience the artwork and to become part of my process," Karver explained.
Karver's The Quality of Human Nature sits at 54 x 84 inches, spread over two panels, and is the centerpiece of the show. With the other pieces each taking part in the puzzle with their eloquent placing and common thread narrative, interconnected by a mutual theme, it stands out mainly because of its size.
Focused on a very busy area of Grand Central, possibly during the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, as the people can be seen bundled up in coats, hats, and scarves, it accentuates the notion of invisibility and obscurity. In the background, stands a staircase giving the viewer the perception of a view that is slightly above the crowd, and the likelihood that the photographer was standing on the staircase opposite the one in view when creating the piece. The people are in mid-motion, oblivious to the photographer. Some are blurred due to their fast-paced steps. Some carry luggage. Others appear to be waiting for the arrival of family members or friends. While stories are printed on select figures, the viewer is pushed to speculate about the stories of those left untold.
The piece includes a story of a young Polish woman, who is the only figure that seems to notice the photographer in the midst of the city rush, as she appears to be smiling for the camera— though she does not stop for the picture. Her story is exultant and humorous, inclusive of her hopes for the future, as well as a few of her very original talents amongst which is making pierogi and attempting acrobatics, as hinted by Karver: "Gymnastic instructor, originally from Poland, multi-talented, can make 250 pierogi in under an hour, sing the national anthem while standing on her head, & rope a calf with the best of them..." This rhyming description is one of many, making the entire piece flow like a Robert Frost poem with multifarious and philosophical themes.
In addition to her photography and painting endeavors, Karver teaches ceramics, another medium she has worked with for years, at Laney College in Oakland, California. She has taught at many colleges, including the University of California at Berkeley, and seems to be as passionate about teaching as she is about her artwork.
"Ceramics is really wonderful to teach. I've had many wonderful students who have gone on to become professional ceramicists," Karver said.
Karver shared that she plans to continue to develop and expand the exhibited project. In addition to her photography and oil paint work, Karver has produced what she calls her Surveillance Series, in which she inserts a lightbox into suitcases to display what is inside. All items include objects that are illegal to bring on an airplane-some are weapons, such as guns and bombs, and some seem harmless, such as liquid-filled bottles.
"I plan to have many more shows with Kim in the future," Karver stated.
Karver's Flash Fiction speaks to isolation in our fast-paced society and busy cities. The pieces make people in a crowd seem friendly and interesting in a world where we were always taught not to speak to strangers. In making each figure's story unique, she breaks down the barriers of the unsaid, and carves out a soft-spot for our unknown fellow man.
Link to Article at GaloMagazine.comSherry Karver, Solo Exhibition "Flash Fiction" at Kim Foster Gallery, 11/2011 - Catalogue Foreword by D. Dominick Lombardi
"... might take a year off to travel, but has no idea where to go, & has never been away from home..."
This, among many other fabricated comments by Sherry Karver are superimposed over select subjects as she guides us back to and through the real world. In her art, Karver suggests that life is passing us by as we text, talk and surf the net on our hand held devices, and we should be taking the time to stop, look, listen, and most importantly, imagine. At least for the time we are viewing her seductive works, Karver gets us back in touch with the real world with all its drama and humor.
She begins with a black and white photograph taken at a variety of public places in a handful of cities, most notably Grand Central Station, where endless possibilities unfold. Text is added digitally, then the photographic print is mounted on a 2 5/8" deep wood panel. With numerous oil glazes, Karver adds color, then coats the final surface with UV resin, a reflective surface that sometimes adds the viewer's own likeness as part of the work.
The combination of the ages old technique of painting in successive oil glazes, and the use of digital techniques to add text and soften detail where needed, creates a shimmering and alternating mood - a seductiveness that draws you in that I would liken to good cinema - where the actors and director take the time to make us believe.
The end result: Karver breathes life into the nameless: the passers by who we will never get to know or meet. They could be sinners, saviors, saucy or sensitive, and Karver gives us back our front row seat to life.
