I work in response to the energy around me, which shifts dramatically between seasons where I live on the east end of Long Island. My paintings are the result of physical responses to emotional experiences, and each piece is a visual record of intangible things - the deep feelings and fleeting thoughts running through me as I consume news, music and podcasts each day are layered and woven into my work through marks of charcoal and strokes of paint. As a result, my compositions tend to be complicated and colorful, and the viewing experience requires processing and often invokes more emotion than understanding for viewers.
My love affair with markmaking has multiple facets, but I most correlate it to the inadequacies of spoken or written language. As a stutterer, words often fail me, but making a mark provides an immediate and direct release of energy that expands beyond the limits of my vocabulary. I am motivated by the idea that a person’s energy can be bound into a mark, and the fact that this mark has never been made before gives it an honesty and authenticity that established words lack.
Elizabeth Karsch (b. 1980, New York, NY) is a visual artist, writer, mother and teacher based in Sag Harbor, NY. She received a Bachelor of Science in Studio Art, with a minor in Art History, from Skidmore College (2002) and studied at Studio Art Centers International in Florence, Italy. Karsch was a member of the Bonac Tonic Art Collective, which revitalized the East End’s contemporary art scene in the early-2000s, and her work has been exhibited at Queens Museum, Parrish Art Musem, Guild Hall, and independent galleries in the Hamptons, Los Angeles, Florida and New York City.
Madison Fender Photo