Karam Cheong

JRB Art at The Elms 

Presents

Pop Realism portraits by Robert Peterson

and

“When Less Becomes More” with KARAM

OKLAHOMA CITY, Oklahoma – JRB Art at The Elms will present two solo exhibitions in November featuring pop realism portrait artist, Robert Peterson, and impressionistic artist, KARAM. The exhibitions open with an evening reception at 6:00 pm on Friday, November 4th, during the Paseo’s First Friday Gallery Walk and continue through Sunday, November 27th.

Robert Peterson is an emerging pop realism portrait artist. He creates portraits of well-known people both living and deceased, using multiple photographs as well as live models to construct powerful images that bring his subjects to life. Peterson’s raw and instinctual works are collected by fans worldwide, including professional athletes Darrell Revis, Amare Stoudemire, Kevin Durant, Carlos Boozer and Floyd Mayweather as well as platinum recording artist Lil Wayne and hip hop mogul Diddy.

Karam is known for her richly layered impressionistic style that visually blends the force of order and disorder with balance and structure to create pieces. By complementing the earthy colors and rough textures, Karam has slowly built her unique style. However, in this solo exhibition, Karam challenges the limits of her abstraction with a new self-developed technique. She uses repetitious processes of accretion to slowly build up the surface so that the components complement each other to form simple linear patterns. 

She first put large amounts of cold wax out onto the palette and mixed it with oil paint using a palette knife; she then started applying the mixture to the surface in layers, using a ruler and a palette knife to make straight lines. She also put the mixture into a pastry bag and squeezed it out through an opening to create numerous, small increments of tangled lines repeatedly.

It is said that in East Asian philosophy, repetition of an action can cleanse and empty one’s soul. Karam states, that while she paints “I am overwhelmed with a number of different emotions, and all of the fear, joy, irritation, and apprehension I feel during the repetitive actions are transferred onto the canvas. My journey ends when all that remains in my mind is emptiness.”