Los Angeles artist Karen Hochman Brown’s solo exhibition, Unspoken Word: BEYOND, TAG Gallery [November 3-28, 2020] ]presents us with large-scale digitally manipulated representations of an imagined, beautiful, and glorious Mother Nature.

“When the realities of ‘sheltering in place’ sunk in, I began traveling through memories of other times and places via my photographic archives. The cloud imagery comes from around the globe, from the sea to the mountaintop. The flowers are from gardens closer to home. I mold the images using ArtMatic Designer by U&I Software, a modular graphics synthesizer program, to create distortions and reflections of my photographs. I finish my work using Adobe Photoshop to assemble and augment the layers into digital collages.

Because I work on a computer, the image I see is bright. There are pixels shining in my face as I create. As a result, I oftentimes choose to print my exhibition pieces on either aluminum or as digital prints laminated to a ¼-inch sheet of acrylic. These substrates mimic the brightness I see on my monitor. For this collection, I chose large-format acrylic prints for this exhibition to enhance the magnificence of the cloudscapes. The artwork floats on the wall without a frame. The polished edges of the acrylic reflect the encased artwork adding an extra illusion of depth. To complement the large pieces, I have continued to play with transparency and depth by creating small mixed media pieces with paper and resin on wood panel.”