April 16, 2007
Purple’s translucent abstract paintings offer the viewer many different layers to explore and get lost in, like a walk in an open field. The compositions have a style similar to the contemporary St Ives School of Art. The long rapid brush strokes of impasto oil painting give the texture of marram grass on dunes or the flow of a cornfield bleached by a high summer sun. The ‘Colour Block’ paintings equally portray memory, the coloured spheres are in hues similar to those of pebbles after the sea has washed over them, lit by an overcast sky.
Light flows through the two facing doors of the black walled spherical O3 gallery and bounces off the paintings like sunshine on a moving stream. The abstract landscapes in miniature glitter with this natural light as different aspects of the scene are gently highlighted. The fact the soft intricate detail of the smaller canvases is hard to see as natural light peters out emboldens the theme of memory that resonates beautifully in Karen Purple’s works.
Light flows through the two facing doors of the black walled spherical O3 gallery and bounces off the paintings like sunshine on a moving stream. The abstract landscapes in miniature glitter with this natural light as different aspects of the scene are gently highlighted. The fact the soft intricate detail of the smaller canvases is hard to see as natural light peters out emboldens the theme of memory that resonates beautifully in Karen Purple’s works.