My paintings complicate our relationship to the everyday. I invite the viewer to behold ordinary objects in unusual settings heightened by color and pattern. By reframing the familiar, my work emphasizes the role of curation, artistic influence, consumerism, point-of-view, and aesthetics in our daily life. The paintings are full of contradictions, being both abstract and representational, grounded yet placeless, and mundane but surreal. In a moment where people live simultaneously in the physical world and online, my paintings evoke the strange filter through which we see much of our reality.
Karen Lederer received her BFA in Printmaking and Drawing from Washington University in St. Louis in 2008 and an MFA in Printmaking from Rhode Island School of Design in 2012. She was an artist in residence at Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop, Lower East Side Printshop, and the Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program. Her work has recently been featured in solo exhibitions at Cheymore Gallery, One River School, Guilford College Art Gallery, and Tennis Elbow. She has participated in many group exhibitions most recently at Cristea Roberts Gallery, Hashimoto Contemporary, and Morgan Lehman. She lives and works in Brooklyn.