KAREN DIVINE

Artist Statement

I began studying photography in the 1970’s in Cambridge, Massachusetts, creating a series of images of women. I then took classes at the Atlanta College of Art, studying painting, woodworking, printmaking, clay, additional photography, continuing in San Miguel de Allende with further printmaking, painting and digital negative classes.

My current work came after attending a series of Digital Photoshop Intensives with the Santa Fe Workshops. I realized with this program I was able to create the pictures I imagined by using my photographic images as a palette: pulling colors, textures, subtle forms and text onto a blank page. They no longer belonged to the “classical” photographic world but evolved into an entirely new “painting”.

Single photographic images, while stunning and intriguing, no longer interested me. I saw the world in layers, stacking colors and ideas, forms and stories on to each other as if one were walking through their day with a somewhat blurred vision, not taking in specifics but seeing the experiences merging into one another. In each final piece, you can see the transparencies of other layers passing through into the next.

These images are about where I am today, focusing on the present, the presence, and the connectedness to the source. Once this connection is made, it spreads to all the layers in one’s life and the seemingly randomness of events as portrayed in some of the images are truly related in ways that the layers express with their transparency. My images are simply moments of an inner
relationship to my present experience and become stories of multiple and
personal dimensions.

All my images are created using my photographs. Images may build upon the next, flattening a final story and using parts of it for another series. I also use my emulsion slide transfers and earlier black and white prints. Occasionally I will add color or texture from a monoprint.

Most of these images were shot using a Canon EOS and printed on Velvet or Ultrasmooth Fine Art Paper using an Epson 2400 Pro 3800.

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Gallery Exhibits

2004-2008
Lucille Lucas Gallery, Crested Butte, CO

2007-2008
Blink Gallery, Boulder, CO

2003-2006
Galeria de Arte Fotografico in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico

2005
Johnson Building Gallery, Gunnison, CO

2004
Scala Fine Art, Crested Butte

February 2001
Rijks Family Gallery Show, Crested Butte, CO

July 2001
Paragon Gallery, Guest Artist

Private and Group Shows

2007
3rd Place Winner International Photo Awards, NYC (IPA) for Nonprofessional-Fine Art Collage and Three Honorable Mention Awards

July 2007
Crested Butte Music Festival Poster Winner

February 2005
Gunnison Center for the Arts, Gunnison, CO

July 2003
Pixilated Palette Show, Boetcher Hall, Denver, Co. Honorable Mention
Crested Butte Mountain Resort, Cover for Treasury Magazine Anniversary Issue
Handpainted Rugs, Floorcloth Exhibit, Crested Butte Country Club, CO

2001
Crested Butte Wildflower Festival Poster Winner

February 2001
Rijks Family Gallery Show, Crested Butte, CO

July 2001
Landscapes of the Imagination, Piper Gallery, Crested Butte, CO

September, 1999
Emulsion Slide Transfers Piper Gallery,Crested Butte, CO

Summer 2001 and September 2002
Published in Popular Photography Magazine (Digital Imaging Guide)