Darina Karpov

The artwork of the Russian painter, Darina Karpov, is known for its incredible density and animation. Karpov paints charged abstract works using images from her surroundings. Though much of the imagery comes from the natural world, she notes that it "has been heavily filtered through culture and media, so it's hard to see it as anything pure." Textures fascinate Karpov and serve as the predominant content of her work; she occasionally even incorporates bits of textile into her paintings. Karpov's work is influenced, as she states, by "all the things that evolve and expand spatially and in temporal dimensions." She questions whether her own dislocation, as a Russian living in America for more than half of her life, or her family's history as geologists and geophysicists have shaped this fascination.

Working sequentially, Karpov creates many artworks at once. As she constructs her works, each one serves as a place to sort out objects and symbols that will have significance in the others. She allows motifs to link and expand, as though her paintings were chain reactions. Karpov was awarded The Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant and is represented by Pierogi Gallery. Select exhibitions include Hales Gallery, London, England; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland; Daniel Weinberg Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; Lehman College Art Gallery, Bronx, NY; and Peter Fingesten Gallery, New York, NY.