Paintings/Words

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I like the way Karoline Schleh thinks. She uses writing in her paintings as a visual tool rather than a verbal one. Her intentions are quite straight forward, as expressed in her Artist Statement. By using antique scripts and backwards writing, her plan is to confuse any meaning we might find; it's all about the visuals. It's all about appreciating the gesture and structure of alphabetical characters and words and how they become star players in the composition.

It's a natural impulse that when we encounter words, we must read them; must comprehend the meaning. Even though we enjoy the composition, our minds still try to cobble together some kind of meaning from the bits and pieces of text that we recognize. But Karoline forces us to appreciate the writing, only as a visual element of the painting and this creates a layer of mystery that gives the work more depth.

All three images are from her Web Site and if these two, seem familiar and organized, it's because they remind you of the old, vintage stereo grams that she's even done a series of "drawings" on.

She's also represented by Ann Connelly Fine Art and reading her one paragraph Artist Statement there is very intriguing.