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Karen Carson
Karen Carson (born in Corvallis, Oregon 1943) is a contemporary artist primarily known for her contributions captivating the style of | minimalism. Through her artwork, Karen Carson has manipulated expansive visual language to convey ideas of nature, culture, feminism, spirituality, and more. Carson has intimate connections with her artwork due to many of them portraying ideas that relate to her personal life and experiences. Carson has used several mediums such as paint on wood and canvas. Her most pertinent works are grouped together in a series known as the “zipper series”. The zipper pieces were soft pieces of canvas or other materials that were held together by zippers. This collection and several of Carson's other pieces can be viewed here.

Life & Education
Carson was born in 1943, Corvallis, Oregon. She studied and received her bachelor's degree from the University of Oregon, Eugene, and her Master of Fine Arts degree at the University of California- Los Angeles.

Artistic Mediums
Karen Carson has a wide spectrum of artistic designs and structures including: kaleidoscopic, zippers, and rural influence. Several of Carson’s newest geometric pieces are showcased in her solo show Middle Ground, at the Gavlak Gallery in Los Angeles. Karen Carson contextualizes the meaning behind the wooden pieces with sharp edges and minimal yet profound color scheme. These early works were meant to contrast with the male-dominated Hard-edge painting style that emerged in the 1950s and ’60s. Through art, Karen Carson depicts the transitions that she has experienced throughout her personal life and as an artist. Significant changes can be viewed through her dichotomous rural art pieces depicting images of country life and tractors. Karen Carson does not shy away from bringing back her past artistic interests into her current installations. Due to Carson being an artist with many artistically enriched years of experience, she has adapted to the world and in turn displayed this perspective through her own lenses in the form of her art.

Solo Exhibitions

 * 2020   “Middle Ground,” Gavlak Gallery, Los Angeles, CA.
 * 2016   “Zip Line,” Rosamund Felsen Gallery, Santa Monica.
 * 2015   “Movers and Shakers: Combines, Tractors, and Swathers by Karen Carson,” Oklahoma State University Museum of Art, Stillwater, OK.
 * 2013   Rosamund Felsen Gallery, Santa Monica.
 * 2011   “La Condition Humaine,” Rosamund Felsen Gallery, Santa Monica.

Group Exhibitions

 * 2020    Nasty Women, Gavlak Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
 * 2014    “The Avant-Garde Collection,” OCMA, Newport Beach, CA. “Valley Vista: Art in the San Fernando Valley CA. 1970-1990”, California State University, Northridge Galleries, Northridge, CA, curated by Damon Willick."Canvas Constructions" Karen Carson and Allan McCollum, Henry Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle.
 * 2011    “Under the Big Black Sun,” Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA (catalog).
 * 2010    “Side By Side,” The Colburn School, Los Angeles, exhib. of artists’ portraits by Wayne Shimabukuro and artworks by each artist, (catalogue).
 * 2009    “Is This The Real Life?” Galerie Califia, Horazdovice, Czech Republic, curated by Phyllis Green.