Interview with Artist Sherry Karver: Once a City Girl, Always a City Girl

October 10, 12:49 PMNY Photography ExaminerLorenzo Dominguez

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Artist Sherry Karver in front of her work, The Balance of Dreams, currently exhibiting at the Kim Foster Gallery in New York City.

With the start of the season again, there is always much excitement amongst the throngs which gallivant about the art district of Chelsea in New York City.

Sometimes the enthusiasm can be a bit fatuous and based on the vacuous presumption that anything hanging on the walls or strewn about the concrete floor of a gallery must be good.

Occasionally though, one comes across work that truly strikes you. This is when your faith is renewed in the art world, and you believe, once again, that indeed there is inherent value in beautiful manifestations of wood, paint and resin.

One such example is the exhibit by Sherry Karver, Private Stories Public Places, that is currently showing until October 17 at the Kim Foster Gallery in the heart of Chelsea. Her first show at the gallery was in March 2008.

Sherry Karver is an established artist based in Oakland, California who uses large black and white photos, which she colors with paint, and then glosses over with resin, so that the viewer sees a reflection of oneself in each piece. Albeit the photo is the focus of the piece, she explains that she feels “more like a painter than a photographer.”

And after you closely examine her work, you’re apt to feel that perhaps Sherry is more of a psychologist than a painter, as well. Because, in addition to paint and resin, Karver also applies a layer of impressively insightful words, one that makes the two-dimensional subjects of her work come alive with meaning and substance.

The reflective nature of her work not only draws one into the scene, but the work itself serves as a reflection on human nature. For dispersed throughout each piece are imagined profiles of random strangers, placed directly over each person.

For example, one 30” x 40” picture titled Weather Is a State of Mind has the following white script typed over one faintly recognizable female figure, who apart from her pointy-tipped shoes, has a gender that is otherwise obscured under the shadow of a crimson umbrella and a pair of androgynously straight pants:

Runs a psychic hotline out of her rent-controlled apartment, really has no such powers, but majored in psychology and knows what people want to hear. Has been divorced three times, apparently doesn’t know what men want to hear, but believes she will still find “Mr. Perfect”.

Has never gotten a face-lift, used botox, waxed any part of her body, or joined a health club. Has fear of moldy fruit and vegetables, only eats the yellow M&M’s in the bag, and got hooked on donkey milk while visiting Chile, but never drinks cow’s milk.

Buys every high-tech gadget even if she can’t figure out how to use it, has drawers full of batteries, but can never find any of her cell phones. Forgets to return calls from clients or kids, then sends gifts to apologize, but doesn’t really mean it.

Loves reading ghost stories & mystery novels until dawn, has been reported missing at least a dozen times, but was really there all along.

In The Path Not Taken, a 42” x 46” image taken of people passing paths in the middle of Grand Central Station, Karver imposes the following over a woman with a blue trench coat tightly wrapped around her:

36 year old office manager, divorced, two kids, a bit self-destructive, impatient & unforgiving, but goes to therapy twice a week in the hopes of changing. Used to have a wild side, took off her shirt for charity, once wore this raincoat with nothing underneath and went grocery shopping, until the store clerk asked her to leave.

Would never admit this to her kids, holds them to a much higher standard, and hopes they never choose to live with their father.

Wants to find a new stepdad for them, but will settle for a meaningless romp with anyone who faintly resembles George Clooney or Justin Timberlake.

 After speaking with Sherry Karver, one immediately gets the impression that not only is she the antithesis of her imagined characters, but that there is also a little bit of her in every profile.

Born and raised in Chicago, she states that her work is endowed with the rich experience of “city life and the multitude of issues we encounter in a large city: loneliness and alienation in our fast-paced society, the concept of personal identity and the loss of it, the individual as part of the crowd, the passage of time, and finding our own unique voice.”
 

“California just doesn’t have the same edge as places like New York City do. Being that I’m originally from Chicago, I need ‘city’. I love what the big city has to offer—culture, museums, galleries.”

Sherry has had some time to reflect on these psychic vestiges of life in the big metropolis because she moved out of the city some time ago and eventually found “Mr. Perfect,” her husband of twenty years, who is a writer, novelist and a poet.

After leaving Chicago, she meandering about as an art and pottery instructor for a while, going from New Orleans where she received her MFA from Tulane, to Milwaukee, and eventully up the coast of California starting in San Diego on to Chico, then Berkeley and finally Oakland, where  in 1987 she met Jerry Ratch in a cafe. After discovering that he too was from Chicago and a fellow aspiring artist, they hit it off, married and have resided in Oakland ever since.

However, once a city girl, always a city girl, which partly explains why her most recent series is made of photos taken in Grand Central Station in New York City and not the San Francisco Bay Area. Almost apologetically, she explains “California just doesn’t have the same edge as places like New York City do. Being that I’m originally from Chicago, I need ‘city’. I love what the big city has to offer—culture, museums, galleries. And you would think that San Francisco would have it as well, but I’ve found that apart from the opera, it just doesn’t have half of what New York City offers, especially when it comes to the visual arts.”

Sherry’s work is extremely visual. The process she goes through every month requires her to take thousands of photos, which she then uses to create composites of meticulously imagined scenes.

And there are no rules when it comes to Sherry’s work. She is just as apt to attribute certain distinctive qualities, desires and shortcomings to a stranger through her delightful psychological profiles as she is likely to switch heads on people, fitting one head upon another person’s body.

Asked about the moment when she realized that she wanted to put words to photos, she regales, “In 2001, I was creating work by cutting photographs out of newspapers. I’d then scan the photos, and sometimes, the back of the paper would come through the photo. That’s when it dawned on me to mix text and pictures. It made me want to tell the story of the people in the photos.”

“It was an attempt to personalize or individualize them, and make them stand out from ‘a sea of sameness.’  These brief stories about the figures are from my imagination, based solely on their appearance or stance. By using written narrative in my work, it creates a public/private dichotomy, giving the viewer an opportunity to ‘experience’ the artwork. One can become a part of the process by reading it, rather than simply looking at an object from a distance, creating a greater impact and duration in its effect on the viewer.

I superimpose these ‘biographies’ on top of the people, almost as if they are wearing their stories like an article of clothing.  I try to give a little bit of history about the person; where they are from, their age, what they do, their hopes, their dreams, and often something humorous, embarrassing or personal, that they would rather not have revealed.

My work also embraces the contemporary non-linear view of time with its randomness, spontaneity, and chance occurrences.  The figures are often in movement, conveying our individual voyages, and is a metaphor for our journey through life - A journey where we are ‘collectively alone.’”

Sherry’s work can currently be seen at the Kim Foster Gallery until October 17. Her work can also be viewed online at www.sherrykarver.com.