Karen Rice

Region: West

Website: http://www.karenrice.com

City / State: missoula , MT

When I was a small child there was an electrical transformer station just a block away from my house. Its strange, spindly spires made me convinced that it was a castle being constructed. Everyday, for a while, I would silently wonder when they were going to finish the castle until one day, I wondered out loud. In one instant, the gleaming, magical subject of childish fantasy became a cold, dangerous, humming spectacle, something not to go near. I felt personally let down by it.

Such shifts in consciousness and perception become subjects of my drawings. I cull imagery from memory, personal, and documentary photographs among other sources to examine human narratives of disintegration and hope, seeking images that reveal complex histories. Scenes of western landscapes become a perfect stage for this process - so many booms, so many busts, and the drama of the sublime combine to create a myriad of threads for my imagination to follow.