Karen May, Untitled (coloring outside the lines), selected by Bob Linder (online exhibition)
About the exhibition
Putting this (online) exhibition together was a difficult choice, there are so many great artists and artworks at NIAD to choose from. I decided on Karen May’s mixed media works on found magazine pages. I was immediately drawn to these, partially because the source material is something I pay attention to regularly: commercial art magazines, auction catalogues, etc. Outside of the immediate naiveté, or what appears to be scribbles on recycled material, these drawings speak, breathe, and dance across the page, altering static advertisements with fresh, unique compositions. They are romantic, unapologetic, and most of all they don’t seem to care about the hierarchy defined by the art world. I ended up choosing close to 100 images; I wanted to recreate the experience I when have flipping through a thick magazine or exhibition catalogue. Overall, I feel like the tangibility of a printed book would be the ultimate for these works. Scanning, printing, binding, and placing them back into the world, so Karen or possibly the viewer, might continue the cycle of reworking them all over again.
About the selector
Bob Linder is an Independent Curator living in San Francisco. He served as Head Curator at The David Ireland House from 2016 - 2019, where he organized challenging, relevant, and forward-thinking exhibitions and public programs.
