American Painter Karen Heagle

Video: Karen Heagle @ Churner & Churner published by velvetparkmagazine, New York, June 2013.

Karen Haegle talks about her paintings and solo show, Karen Heagle: Battle Armor, May 08, 2013 – June 22, 2013 at Churner & Churner Gallery, New York. It is the artist’s first exhibition with the gallery and her fourth solo show. The press release reads: ‘In her bold and brash large-scale works on paper, Heagle uses gold and copper leaf, acrylic paint and colored paper to depict symbols of masculine pageantry. The works in this series are inspired by Heagle’s research into 17th-century genre paintings, particularly memento mori and vanitas paintings. Like her earlier work, which depicted animal carcasses, fruits, vegetables, and other symbolic props, these vivid paintings are direct confrontations of mortality and sexuality. As a queer artist who grew up in a strict Catholic family, Heagle employs religious imagery to expose a fascination with the forbidden. The bright and iridescent hues and overcharged symbolic content – in this exhibition, peacocks, motorcycles, knights in armor, virgin and child breastplates – recall Pierre and Gilles’ highly stylized photographs. With “Battle Armor,” Heagle connects 17th-century iconography to contemporary practice.’

Karen Heagle is based in New York. In the fundraising video below she is in her studio talking about her her Memento Mori Project, which was successfully funded in 2012 and the paintings was exhibited at her solo show Karen Heagle: Battle Armor.

Fundraising video by Karen Heagel for her Memento Mori Project.

[The copyright of the videos above remain with the original holders and it is used here for the purpose of education, comparison and criticism only.]

Related Link

Article: Karen Heagle’s Battle Armor at Churner & Churner by Grace Moon/ Velvet Park