Karla Wozniak makes paintings inspired by the contemporary American landscape. The places in these paintings sit on the brink of development but are overtaken by a beautiful and sometimes suffocating natural world. They explode with exuberant color and complex forms. Woven marks build into figural foliage and morph into sweeping vistas. Mountains appear and erode before our eyes. Gestural marks are combined with molded and carved surfaces and density of detail. These paintings move between representation and a self-generated abstraction, forming a tapestry of obsessive patterning and tactile surfaces. Taking the observed landscape as a starting-off point, these works form their own hallucinatory and fantastical world.
Karla Wozniak received her BFA from Rhode Island School of Design and her MFA from the Yale University. Her recent exhibitions include a solo exhibition at the Gregory Lind Gallery, and group exhibitions at the Knoxville Museum of Art and Regina Rex in New York City. Wozniak’s distinctions include a New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship; participation in the Bronx Museum’s Artist in the Marketplace program; participation in the Marie Walsh Sharpe Space Program; and MacDowell Colony Fellowships. Her work has been featured in a number of publications, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, San Francisco Chronicle, Houston Chronicle, Village Voice, and the Huffington Post, among others. Her work is included in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and the Knoxville Museum of Art permanent collections.
Assistant Professor, Painting Drawing
Assistant Professor, Fine Arts
karlawozniak@cca.edu
BFA, Rhode Island School of Design
MFA, Yale University
