February 22 – March 30, 2025
Karen Rose exhibits paintings and prints of the natural landscape in places now marked as political borders. Some of the artworks show barbed wire or fencing, but inmost, the artist has removed human structures and machines that refuse access across. She paints these regions as simple landscapes—territories that were once naturally open and expansive—to point out to viewers what has happened. She wants us to think how political boundaries are chosen and built; how borders signify ownership and emphasize difference, solidifying “us and them”, separation, inequality, and often, violence.
Rose began this series to honor her grandparents who immigrated to the US from Mexico. During the pandemic, unable to travel, she painted the Mexican border from film stills, looking at landscapes in Westerns. Other Border Paintings are based on photos from the news: borders of Ukraine/Russia, Israel/ Gaza. Rose also travelled to Morocco to reflect on peaceful coexistence and paint the utopian vision “beyond borders” of the Atlas Mountains. She also looks at the treatment of borders in film. Three prints are drawn from Clint Eastwood films where “the Mexican border” was actually filmed in Spain.
Rose’s palettes honor Mexican and Ukrainian textiles, and present electric pinks with black to express horror at near-apocalyptic events.
She works “to process what is actually happening, feelings and thoughts about wars and confusion.” She says her position is one of an outsider looking in; her Border Paintings are visions of peace.
