Karen MacDonald

mixed media

I fall in love easily with all kinds of things: the shininess of scotch tape, the fuzzy white lines of creased wax paper and the zigzag edge you get when tearing it from the box, the sparkle of bubble wrap, backwards type and erratic strips of color unintentionally printed in the margins of a newspaper page. 

In good part, my work is material-driven, fueled by the recognition and illumination of particular attributes in things we often look past. But heartache is also part of the equation- meaning that aspect of the human condition whereby we can be moved by a moment of beauty, or a moment of rightness, both in its coming and its going.

Ultimately, my pieces are meditations for me- on life’s magnificence and uncertainty, on aspiration and fallibility, and on wrestling with the wish to hold onto things I cannot.