Piety Choi, Maria DiMauro and Karen Steen:

Nature and Nurture
Three Women and the Art of Sustenance

Karen Steen

Statement

The microscopic realm fascinates me.  Its flowing energy, myriad forms and interconnections are like a glorious dance.  Ceaseless processes and rhythms, mystery and potential understanding lie just beneath the surface, invisible to the naked eye.  The small-scale world is an endless resource of forms and composition. It also has associations with significant meaning. Within the microcosm are the building blocks of the universe; minute parts, systems and elaborate interconnections that organize themselves into an integrated whole. Each element and its proper placement give me the sense that there is an order, that there is sanctity for the individual and how it fits into the big picture, whether that individual be a cell, an organism, a tide pool, a rainforest, or a planet.  Yet, this order feels very fragile and I am uneasy about civilization destroying the balance.  My detailed and delicate drawings and paper sculptures call for close examination and suggest elaborate and beautiful systems that are vulnerable.

Biography

Karen Steen, a native of Southern California, moved to Bethlehem Pennsylvania four years ago. She completed her MFA at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia in 2007 and now works from her studio at Bethlehem’s Banana Factory. Steen began her career as a commercial artist, working as an editorial illustrator for magazines such as Modern Maturity, Disney Channel, Westways, and Shape. She has bachelors degrees in Illustration from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California earned in 1988 and in Business from Colorado College, in Colorado Springs, earned in 1978.

Karen’s artistic life includes her commitment to art education.  She believes that there is a freedom in art that doesn’t exist in other endeavors.  “If children learn to use and be comfortable with that freedom, we will have a richer, more flexible and creative society. The empowerment that comes with becoming a creative problem-solver will help young people in whatever they choose to pursue in life,” she says.  This belief inspired Karen to found and direct a volunteer run art program at Arroyo Vista Elementary School in her hometown, South Pasadena.   She currently teaches art in the Banana Factory’s B-Smart program for at risk youth, is an instructor in after school art workshops at Saucon Valley Elementary School, in Hellertown, Pennsylvania, and in school day workshops for Holy Infancy students at the Banana Factory.

The technical and conceptual skills Karen used as an illustrator are important to her current fine art practice, although now she works more abstractly and is guided by intuition rather than an art director. Steen’s current body of work includes drawing and relief sculpture made with a variety of materials, including diluted paints and inks, colored pencil, pastel, paper and wood.  She blends precise drawing with the random changes to papers produced by drips, rust or immersion in liquid.

Karen Steen's website

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View Artwork: Piety Choi - Maria DiMauro - Karen Steen