Chromatic Collaboration

Beginning in 2019, encaustic artist Caryl St. Ama, painter Margaret Lazzari, mixed-media artist Nancy Kay Turner and I began a collaborative project using color as a commonality. As part of the Hana Kark Collective we each worked independently to create 25 birch plywood panels, 6” x 6” each, in each primary and secondary color. We started with blue, intending to work our way through the spectrum. Without a clear idea of how we would ultimately assemble the work, or where the process might lead us, we began. We had our first exhibitions of the work, mid-process, in September 2019.

Hana Kark intends to create transformative art experiences for the viewer, and for the artists who make the pieces, through a collaborative process that is at once prescribed and spontaneous. For the first time, in this collaboration, each artist worked separately on their twenty-five panels for each color. The collaborative element comes in the hanging of the work, which can be configured by color, arranged by artist, or randomly placed in a mosaic of color, texture, and text. This concept allows for maximum curatorial flexibility as each artist’s 25 panels are a complete 30” x 30” work by themselves. The artwork may be separated and rearranged in unlimited configurations – and may be presented in a formal grid, or an organic series snaking around the gallery walls.

To date, we have exhibited the collection three times. Each exhibit was curated by different people, twice by the artists, and once by an independent curator. Beyond the exhibitions, interior designers and Individual collectors who have purchased the work have made their own curatorial decisions, sometimes combining the work of multiple artists, and sometimes narrowing it to a single artist.

Click below for more about each color.