A Life Lived
Karen Azarnia + Lindsey Hook

Curated by Angela Bryant

“A Life Lived” is a two-person exhibition exploring the intersection of experience, memory, storytelling and mark-making. In today’s cultural climate we obsessively document public events and personal moments through photographs, video, and social media; presenting curated facades for ourselves and the people around us. Here, both artists’ work serves as a vehicle for deeper, more reflective interpretation and expression of personal life experiences.

The methods of painting and drawing employed range from abstraction to representation, connecting feeling, emotion, and evaluation. Incorporating a variety of surfaces and material, the use of painterly touch evokes an unconscious physical response in the viewer through haptic sensation. The works suggest the very complex range of both intellectual and emotional responses to that which makes us human: a life lived.

ABOUT
Lindsey Hook is a Chicago transplant by way of Seattle and the Pacific Northwest. She came to the city in 2007 to study painting and drawing at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and received her MFA in 2010. Over the last five years she has rediscovered a childhood love of calligraphy, and has been exploring connections between painting, drawing, fiber arts, lettering, and language. She currently works as a professional calligrapher, and makes hand carved calligraphy pens in addition to her artistic pursuits. www.lindsey-hook.com

Karen Azarnia is an artist, educator, and curator. Born in Miami, FL, she currently lives and works in Chicago, IL. She received an MFA in Painting and Drawing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. She has exhibited widely, with solo exhibitions at Terrain Exhibitions, Oak Park, IL; the Riverside Arts Center, IL; the Union League Club of Chicago, IL; and upcoming group exhibitions at Heaven Gallery, Chicago, IL; and the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art, Chicago, IL. She is a grant recipient from the Illinois Arts Council and the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, and has been featured in Chicago Woman Magazine, Hyperallergic, the Huffington Post, and Newcity. She is currently a Lecturer in the Department of Painting and Drawing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. www.karenazarnia.com

For additional information or to schedule a viewing contact: lifelived2017@gmail.com

Images: left: Karen Azarnia, Detail: There and Back, 2016, 24” x 20”, Oil and acrylic on canvas
right: Lindsey Hook, Circular Breathing, 2017, 22″ x 30″, Ink on Magnani Pescia

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Tags: A Life Lived, Abryant Gallery, Angela Bryant, Chicago, Karen Azarnia, Lindsey Hook, Lower West Side