About Karl
Baltimore City
Born, Dublin, Ireland. Karl came to Baltimore in 1992 to study under Grace Hartigan at the Hoffberger School of Painting, MICA, and has been a city resident ever sinse. Karl showed with the C. Grimaldis Gallery for 16 years and currently manages his own studio practice. His work has been shown in many group and solo shows over the years at private, commercial and public spaces. Notable venues include The Contemporary, Chrysler Museum, Penn Station NYC, Walters Art Gallery. Collections include… more
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Stories, of sorts. 2004 - 2013
The work included here represents samples of work from a 9 year period where I was playing with the natural interplay between the surface of the canvas and illusionary space it tends to contain. As a painter I've always believed in simply making the work I want to see.
I am interested in how an image works; in how an image, though perfectly static is experienced in what might reasonably be called contemplative time. My method of practice has generally revolved around the idea of making a body of work based on current interests and aesthetic needs. Earlier work relied heavily on the ironic use of iconography and procedural conventions tied to 17th European painting. In time both my palette and my content shifted as I continued to refine my relationship with painting.
The broad interrelationships between painting and photography played a central role in my work for a number of years. I worked with a reduced palette and began to play with blur, distortion and depth of field notions. In time this led to further reductions in surface conventions resulting in a body of work which relied entirely on repeated sequences of transparent vertical marks, where the only variable was color. These Stripe paintings ran their course but as I returned to representational conventions the surface was still something I want to play on. From here I have slowly returned to procedural conventions more directly related to work I was making many years ago. Painting is a strange game. (2013).
I am interested in how an image works; in how an image, though perfectly static is experienced in what might reasonably be called contemplative time. My method of practice has generally revolved around the idea of making a body of work based on current interests and aesthetic needs. Earlier work relied heavily on the ironic use of iconography and procedural conventions tied to 17th European painting. In time both my palette and my content shifted as I continued to refine my relationship with painting.
The broad interrelationships between painting and photography played a central role in my work for a number of years. I worked with a reduced palette and began to play with blur, distortion and depth of field notions. In time this led to further reductions in surface conventions resulting in a body of work which relied entirely on repeated sequences of transparent vertical marks, where the only variable was color. These Stripe paintings ran their course but as I returned to representational conventions the surface was still something I want to play on. From here I have slowly returned to procedural conventions more directly related to work I was making many years ago. Painting is a strange game. (2013).
Figure 1990 - 97
I worked with the figure on and off for years, and as a younger painter was known primarily for large figurative images fused with Baroque conventions. No surface is as charged with the history of painting as the evocation of flesh. To paint the figure is to speak directly to history.
Landscape 1990 - 2012
I never paint from life and I never paint specific places. My landscapes have always been constructions of sorts, conjured up spaces whose form is dictated by the story I'm looking to find. I think about the landscape as a dwellable space, a thinking space.
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Landscape with Stone1994 o/c 9"X12"
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Depth of field 71996 o/p 8" x 8"
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Ben Bulben1997 o/c 46" x 54"
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Depth of Field 281999 o/c 30" x 18"
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Landscape with Dots1997 o/c 22"x22"
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Ploughed Field2007 o/c 36" x 48"
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Ploughed Field #22007 o/c 72" x 72"
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Landscape with Bowl2007 o/c 72" x 68"
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Bend2008 o/c 32"x48"
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Ocean with 2 Cars2007 o/c 62" x 64"
Early Stripe Paintings 1999 - 2004
Between 1999 and 2001 I was working to explore notions of economy in painting, distilling elaborate conventions down to more elemental decisions. Initially these paintings were derived exclusively from photography as I played with retaining a concrete evocation even as the image itself disolved. In time they became stand alone formal Paintings which simply emerged through the process of the mark-making itself, with no pre-ordained order, hue or rhythm. They are beautiful paintings and develop quite literally through a conversational process.
Objects 1992 - 2011
At times I like to simply paint an object, to focus on its surface, its form and the space it defines around itself. There is something simple and elegant in this. Realism is not the game.
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Hat Painting1995 o/c 9" x 18"
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Basket Of Fruit1995 o/c 42" x 48"
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Still Life with Mushroom1996 o/c 18" x 14"
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Still Life with Mushroom 21996 o/c 18" x 14"
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Meat # 42003 o/p 16"x16"
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Meat # 52004 o/c 24" x 30"
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duet2005
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Double Duck2006 o/p 16" x 22"
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Overpass 32008 o/c 16" x 16"
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Overpass 72008 o/c 28" x 36"