Opening at LA Artcore Union Center of the Arts-Los Angeles

Impact Of Life:  New artwork by Karrie Ross

LA Artcore Union Center for the Arts
August 3rd thru August 31, 2014
Karrie Ross / Michael Wood / Dani Vinokurov
OPENING Reception: Sunday, August 3rd from 3 to 5pm
Conversation with the Artists: 4pm

Los Angeles — Karrie Ross will exhibit a selection of paintings, created over a two-year period, at LA Artcore Union Center for the Arts, from August 3rd thru 31st, 2014. Gallery hours are Wednesday through Sunday, 12noon to 5pm. Opening Reception and Meet the Artist at 4p.m. Karrie’s work spans a variety of images offering surreal faces, and the whimsy of a figure with an egg, to her exploration of impact craters form and energy transference. Her questions arise from social, scientific, and personal investigations.


The exhibition features a selection of ink & paint pieces from Ross’ most recent work and sets to recount her whimsical view of living through difficult situations over the past two-years time. “It, the exploration of the ink & paint style and process, has finally come together for me. The imagery is not only fun, compelling and balances my energetic needs, it brings my essence in touch with what is going on in my life in a safe way, so I can better relate to it. The ink satisfies my never-ending need to be active, to ‘take’ me out of the now into a flowing space in mind, mixed with the painting aspect, providing a safe seamless connection.”

There are three series represented. “I Am The Egg!” follows the expressive figures of a man and a woman as they interact within the egg world. The egg representing the sensitivity and delicateness of the eggshell, and how it stays strong through play and whimsy, in the world of question. “Energy Impact Crater” explores the makings of our universe, the force that created it, as well as the continuing vibration and energy dispersement that exists because of it… the Big Bang creation. And, “Surreal” presenting the seeing of thoughts and items in juxtaposition of each other, being logical or not… existing in a moment of the illusive illusion of time and space inviting you into the not-here.

Karrie’s work centers around the personal generation of a continuous flow of energy and her belief that this energy can be shared with the world through exploring art, haikus, writing, and exampling the concepts of feng shui energy balancing.

Karrie is a native of Los Angeles and describes herself as a visual artist who makes art with abandon.

This is a three person show, the other two artists are Michael Wood and Dani Vinokurov. See laartcore.org for more information.

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LA Artcore Union Center for the Arts: 120 Judge John Aiso Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012 • (213) 617-3274 • info@laartcore.org Easy parking! There is an underground parking lot open right across the street, and parking in the lot to the left of the building. LA Artcore Union Center for the Arts is located in Little Tokyo, one block away from the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA): Geffen and the Japanese American National Museum.

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Interview questions:

1. When did all this start to happen in your life: Not the school you went to or the teacher you met, but in your mind’s eye as one day you took a look at yourself?  A. “It” wasn’t so much how I looked at myself but how I saw, experienced the world around me…my interaction with people and nature started the questions and observations.

2. Is there a single artist that your feel has been an influence on your work?  A. I am a product of the television beginning in the 1950s so advertising really hooked me. The artists I like are Matisse, Monet, Picasso, Walt Disney, Sam Francis, Eicher, Dali, Man Ray, Charles and Ray Eames, Frank Lloyd Wright, Diebenkorn, Sol Bass, and I’m sure more that I just can’t channel up right now.

3. What would you like the writers and critics to say about your work but never do?  A. My work be it whimsical in nature at times, is created from a deep need to connect and transform ways of seeing, perspectives and listening.

4. What do you want from people as they look at your work?  . I mostly get what I want. They look at it and get an expression on their face. Sometimes a smile or just a quizzical look…the fact that they respond is what I like to see, that means they have been touched, that the seed has been planted.

5. Somebody once said, “Great art is about clear thinking and mixed feelings.” What do you think about that?  A. Heck, I get so many of my ideas when I’m sleeping so maybe the clear mind part is there… and for sure, emotions are a part of it… response is what I call it.

6. How do you know when an artwork is finished? A. My eye can move around it without “having” to be forced to stop… but allowed to stop when it’s interested. Then I know there is a balance “for me”. And of courts when I smile a lot and think how great it is. (blush)

7. Is art a full-time profession for you? A. Art is full-time. I am a graphic designer for my profession and painting and drawing and assemblage occupies the rest of my day.

8. What other activities in your life have a direct effect on your creative work?  A. Everything has an effect on my art. Any sense, see, touch, smell, emotions, hear … conversations and shopping, the way plants are arranged in patterns, colors that show up in watching a sunset etc., buildings and the skyline. EVERYTHING.

9. Is balance a matter of concern in your work?  A. Balance of everything is everything.

10. Is questioning a vital source of discovery for you?  A. I am the proverbial 2-year-old, my favorite word is “why?” and my favorite type of sentence is a question.

11. What is your approach and method of working?  A. It, the method, varies. Sometimes just going to the galleries or museums will spark a question for discovery. Taking a walk or having a conversation with a friend and the words that bring about images or emotions or colors. I have to over expose my senses to a place where the mind moves by itself with out prompting. At this point is when I start the process of either sketching or cleaning up the studio in preparation and then the dreams come… vibrations sparking the need to explore and answer my needs. Creating the vibration, getting it to a height of take off… always a pleasure in the pleasure it brings and stays with me over the time I need to accomplish either one piece or a series of work.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE From http://www.laartcore.org/New_Website/exhibitions-2014-Aug.html

L.A. Artcore is pleased to announce this drawing and painting show that reveals in its artists, an attraction to craft and the intimate role it plays in each artist’s methodical and intuitive processes.

The abstract paintings of Michael Freitas Wood are formed from numerous and overlaid handmade grids whose intricate structural buildup and exploration of color differentiate between compositions whose undulating and patterned effects are made active by underlying geometric forms that describe and an overall structure whose character fluidly travels between architectural elements, technological imprints, textile design (to name a few) and visually inquires about them through a lens similar to that of an archaeologist, anthropologist and/or sociologist engaging with the state of civilization past and present. 
The intricate lattice structures that make up Wood’s paintings are created with pigmented-plaster that is thinly applied through strips of tape giving Wood the desired definition of a hard edge. But repeating this technique numerous times while layering them over and over yields optically-vibrating images that are produced between chromatic variation and distinguished by alternating forms.
In the curiously-inspired art of Dani Vinokurov , the artist exclaims, “My collages are one part magic, one part dreamscape, one part folk art, and one part nature.” Vinokurov’s  visual narrative unfolds through tiny ink drawings, meticulous paper cuts, watercolor washes, miniature weavings, and embroidery. In the artist’s words, “Each collage is a place where the conscious and subconscious minds intersect—a place of luscious and whimsical environments where flora and fauna interact with repeat-pattern design to tell a story of femininity, folklore, and fantasy.”
At its core, the direct aesthetic world of human, animal and natural imagery in Karrie Ross ‘ art correlates with the development of the artist’s working techniques on paper. Yet, the artist describes her process of discovery as one that is intertwined with learning about matter itself, Ross expresses equal fascination for the implications of science and its detections of matter vibrating at a subatomic level and producing frequencies, which the artist conveys as, “…a fascination with the internal vibrations of the atom; that everything vibrates. That concept was brought really close to me back when I was around nineteen. A man walked up to the counter I was working at and slammed his hand on it and he said, “Do you know that that’s moving!?” and I was a dumbfounded young girl going, “Okay, he’s a customer, what do I do?” Well, come to find out, that everything has a frequency. If we meet that frequency of what we want, the universe can’t help but give us that frequency.” Needless to say, Ross captures the simultaneous interactions between materials and symbolic imagery. Ross vividly recalls  a childhood experience of being outside in the yard during an earthquake, and being called after by her mom from inside while a bee flew into her dress, this being of a dreamlike quality whose absurdity of simultaneous events has become the defining quality of her art.
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