Exhibition: Playing Tag
January to June 2023
One golden autumn day, I looked skyward to the honking of southbound Canada Geese
Reminded of practicing scales on the piano with each bird a note, I envisioned a musical staff superimposed, or “tagged”, over the iconic flying V formation.
Suddenly, musical notes and sounds seemed to be hiding everywhere.
I began to photograph such commonplace images as a scattering of leaves, footprints in the snow and shadows of objects as Earth made its way around the sun.
A notion to stencil symbols over the photos evolved into this suite of ten mixed-media prints.
In assembling the work, I mimic the action of a Graffiti artist by stencilling my “tags” (musical staffs, clefs, sound effects) onto a barrier of acrylic panels through which the photographs are visible. Their titles painted on the bottom borders reflect my fondness for puns.
The works are displayed flat against the wall, although Bridge is fun to present on the floor with a few dried leaves and pebbles on its surface, playfully adding to the score.
In this celebration of imagined music, I am inviting viewers to “play tag” for themselves and discover what may be hidden in the gutter, the shadows, or the stars
Exhibition
About the Artist
Karen E. Schulz enjoys an eclectic art practice which roams between several media.
From expressing a wide range of one-off thoughts in her prints to manipulating the surface of a sheet of paper in recent experimental drawings, she is inspired by the evolution of an idea as it reveals itself in that practice.
Born in the farming community of Grandview, Manitoba, she has been based in Winnipeg since 1962, with a two year sojourn to Arizona which included a year of Fine Arts.
Her digital print Continued…. was collected by The Canada Council Art Bank and her award-winning short video Once Removed was featured in BlackFlash Magazine.
Karen has maintained a studio in Winnipeg’s Exchange District since 2005 where the work of serious planning and welcoming the unexpected remain inseparable.