Artist Statement
“Extreme shyness throughout childhood confined me to a world of quiet observation focused on the security of home and the visual detail of my personal surroundings. My early drawings and paintings of interiors were a clear expression of my predilection for the objects, colors and patterns of an immediate world and what these basic elements psychologically evoked. I loved my world of art. It filled a primal need to create and be human and playful and not just function. In time, these interior works evolved to address the outer world’s massive invasion of images from books, magazines, television, internet, art, etc. that inflict upon our psyches (especially women’s) a need to ever ‘improve’ mind, body, style, career, family, home, etc. Ironically, I found the monumental waste of resources and overload of images and information to be in direct conflict with these goals and felt compelled to ‘gather up’ and reuse existing images to express what the search for the product or new idea that could lead to a significant ‘improvement’ might look like. My collages create balanced compositions of the everyday and the familiar that reflect back to us what we may be searching for. There is a definite hunter-gather satisfaction in the process and in the result of turning the intended media manipulation into something unintended and personal. As much as we may feel the need to become ‘new and improved’ I feel we are just as in need of strong bonds with our personal past histories and identities.”
Elaine Karton is currently the gallery manager at Trapani Fine Art & Frame Shoppe in Manhasset. She has worked in art and framing for the past 17 years at The Robley Gallery in Roslyn and Gramercy Park Framers’ Workroom & Gallery in New York City. She has a BFA in Fine Arts and Art History from Brooklyn College and has studied at The Brooklyn Museum, Cooper Union and the School of Visual Arts. She is an accomplished painter and collage artist and has exhibited at The Viking Gallery, The Robley Gallery, The Guild Hall, BJ Spoke, The Suburban Art League and can be currently seen at Trapani Fine Art Gallery.