An Artist Reception to welcome Artist Karen LaGrave Small to Harlequin will take place on Friday, September 6, 2024 from 5:30 – 6:30 pm in the State Theater Lobby. All are welcome! Light refreshments will be served.
Meet the Artist
“I paint my life,” I often answer when asked what I paint. Experiences lead to thoughts and come out in my paintings as images created through musings and visual fragments. World events from the radio and seen in news programs or papers often mix with immediate experiences in my own world. I’m often surprised and informed by my paintings. My friend and art guide, Louis Mateo expressed my experience clearly, “Art is the link between the known and the unknown.”
Karen Small has been a painter since High School and received a BFA from Washington State University. After receiving a Master’s in Child and Family Studies, she worked as a Child Development Specialist and painted on the side. Having more time in recent years she has been able to activate her artistic life full time.
Artist Statement
Income disparity has increased during my adult life and has been a recurring theme in my paintings. The Green Car Home series represents the time when poor people could only buy gas guzzlers. and as the cars died they sometimes became homes. The same is true today. People of means can buy an electric car which is inexpensive to drive, but in the last ten years, car prices have increased dramatically. Even with a tax rebate, buying an electric car is out of reach for many.
My homeless series continued after I moved to downtown Portland. I met Alice, who in her 80s was panhandling and welcoming people to Portland outside the Whole Foods store in the Pearl District. Blanket Man roamed the streets, and behind the Lady with the Pink Purse, a man slept on a bench in the South Park Blocks.
Historically marriage has been a way out of, or a way to avoid poverty for women. The break-up of marriages and other circumstances can leave women and children without a home. They are the hidden homeless living in cars and camping in the summer.
Included in this show are some of my paintings of the grief and fear that came after the love of my life died suddenly fifteen years ago.
These paintings and prints have a message, but they are painted in a playful way. So buy one and take it home to enjoy.
Karen LaGrave Small
klgsmall@gmail.com