Kari Hall

Artist Statement

When I began to develop skills in drawing and painting, a new vision of my life appeared to me. My life was to be played from my imagination to a canvas, piece of paper, or anything I could get my hands on. I started to experiment with many different materials that gave way to a distinctive mark. This mark can be described as frantic and loose.

Internal struggles and frustrations fester inside of me until they have nothing to do but be painted. Art is the one of the only ways to put emotions in a display case, and by using bold and powerful colors along with exaggerated marks, my display cases demand attention. My drawings possess a sense of harshness; including manic, dark, and vivid images; mainly conveyed by an insistent mark.

My work is varied in subject matter, but consistent with tight composition and vigorously applied paint. Hidden features such as a lightening bolt or a line of poetry work their way into the fabric of the layers of medium, sometimes with a conscious purpose, and sometimes their reason is hidden even from me, but has insistently flowed out with the intense energy put into each piece.

A few months ago, as soon as I graduated with a Fine Arts B.A. from Greensboro College in North Carolina, I high-tailed it out West to somewhere new and completely different from anything I had ever known. Just as in my life, in my art I want to explore all techniques, all subject matter, and all angles, and then take matters into my own hands. By knowing the rules, I also know my options to bend them and test them to make pieces on my own terms.

In my work I want to create a world to supplement a stolen sense of wonder for me, to make my own magic, to find beauty and newness in simplicity.