Mary Jo Karimnia is an artist, former Artist Residency Director, and curator based in Memphis, TN. She founded and runs The Studiohouse on Malvern which includes the Front Porch Window Gallery.
Karimnia builds rich collaged surfaces with vintage and contemporary images, glass beads, foil and velvety flocking to produce an enhanced and often idyllic view. She experiments with materials using them in unconventional ways, honing her craft to a sophisticated level. Her subject matter asks questions of an idealized past and addresses images of self and a surreal sense of magic.
Artist Statement
It’s all about the surface for me. Using materials to produce an altered view. Materials equal pleasure for me. I get excited when I pull out the rainbow of bead colors to find the right shade and I love how the translucent beads are affected by the color of the surface below. The ideas I’m addressing are deep, deep within myself, hidden in shadows. Ancient magic and everyday life.
The Overripe Series reflects my personal life as a female identifying artist struggling for recognition in an often patriarchal society. The work begins with a scanned image of a vintage postcard enlarged, mounted and reworked. Beauty and sadness compete in these unreal views of an idyllic past that never really was, aching for a future that may never be.
$125.00
$1,300.00
$180.00
$125.00
$125.00
