Karen Adrienne - August 2021
Karen moved to Maine in 1987 and taught Printmaking, Drawing, and Bookmaking at the University of Maine @ Augusta until 2017. Her print works have been exhibited nationally and internationally and she has received numerous grants and awards.
Karen’s prints are conceptually and physically embedded in reciprocity. They are built by the mutual relationship of concealing and revealing, plan and chance. As she investigates properties of nature with marks and inky flats of color, she explores properties of paper by folding with the pressure of the press. Layers are built upon until she has captured a momentary balance of chance with a fugitive experience of nature. It’s about chance, and the urge to capture a moment and the vision of that experience. “
Her travels and residencies have informed her creative work and influenced the media used. Artist residencies include Vermont Studio Center Residency, Tilting Artist in Residence, Fogo Island, Newfoundland & Labrador Canada, Anderson Ranch Fellowship sponsored by Boston Printmakers, NEFA Fellowship, NEA & Arts International Travel Grant, MAC grants, Karl Hoffer Society, Fundacion Valpariso, and MARC Residencies.
Karen Adrienne is also the owner and director of Artdogs Studios, founded in 2004, and Circling the Square Fine Art Press, founded in 2007. Both of these studios are located in a rehabbed 1860’s building in the historic district in Gardiner, Maine.
Artdogs Studios creates a community of working artists with five artist day studios and one artist residence. Circling the Square Fine Art Press is an open-access press that builds a community of print-based artist in Central Maine and provides a non-toxic studio and a gallery for the display of their work. The press has participated in local and international print exchanges including the Solisquoy Press in Orkney Scotland, and Estamperia Quitena in Quito, Ecuador.
Photo by Hilary Schaffner
Canaries in the Coal mine
Sky Totem, 2019
See more of Karen’s work here.