Beyond the View
Karen Prakhoff Rickman
November 9 – 30th 2024
Opening Reception: Saturday 9 November, 2 – 4 pm
West End Art Space
Artist Statement
Karen Prakhoff Rickman is a Boorloo / Perth based contemporary artist. Her practice is driven by the exploration of the layered bushland and monoprint as evocation. This seductive process fosters serendipitous mark making and the synthesis of painting, drawing and printmaking.
Each print layer deliberately overwrites the previous image simultaneously creating and denying its form. It speaks of memory, time, loss and renewal.
Karen feels scenic vistas often serve to distance us from nature. Rather than reproducing specific scenes she looks beyond the view to convey the sense of being in the landscape, thereby engaging memory and imagination. Her work hovers in the space between figuration and abstraction; between what we see and what we feel.
Baigup Wetlands on the Swan River floodplain provides her main inspiration. A place of mutable shadows, light and reflections, it possesses a haunting beauty and timelessness that compels her to be in the moment. This particular body of work commenced during a summer drought in 2023 when mature trees and forests were withered and dying. It charts her nuanced response to this crisis, paying homage to the fragility, resilience and importance of the bush.
About the Artist
In 2006 Karen completed a Master of Creative Arts at Curtin University, resulting in a solo exhibition followed by a 10 year hiatus to focus on her family. In 2016 she began exhibiting again and has produced bodies of work for 8 solo and several group exhibitions. Karen has been a finalist in numerous art awards including the Fremantle Arts Centre Print Awards 2023, and overall winner of the Melville Art Awards 2021 (acquisitive). Her work is held in both public and private collections.
