Karen Schwartz, “Down the Rabbit Hole” (2014), mixed media on linen, 72 x 60 inches (all photos by the author for Hyperallergic)
The paintings in Karen Schwartz’s show at Life on Mars are big, bold semi-abstractions that skate along the edge of chaos. That she is also a practicing psychotherapist is a factor that should or should not have a bearing on her work, depending on your bias toward biography. Either way, these are artworks that make the most out of what they’re made of: paint.
In his perceptive essay for the exhibition’s catalogue, the artist and writer Robert C. Morgan notes:
From the artist’s perspective, her work is less about illustrating psychoanalytic theory, which plays an ancillary role, than about what she discovers in the act of painting. Because her images are, in fact,
Article source: http://hyperallergic.com/208484/speaking-the-language-of-paint-karen-schwartz-at-life-on-mars/