If Our Walls Could Talk

Karen Kassap |  Website: karenkassap.com  |  Instagram: KarenKassap

About Karen

Karen Kassap studied mixed media collage with Debi Pendell for many years, and Debi remains an important mentor to her. She also studied photography at the International Center for Photography in New York.  She is a member of the Connecticut Bar and the Pennsylvania Bar. When she is not in her studio she is a volunteer for the Apostle Immigrant Services and works as a facilitator for the ADL Words to Action program.  Kassap is the proud mother of Naomi, Myles and Sam, and the wife of Cary Caldwell.

About Karen’s Art

Karen has been working as a mixed media collage artist for more than 15 years. She enjoys this form of expression because it illustrates the dichotomy between the completed work, and the many layers of paint and paper that form the foundation of the piece.

The underlying support for her collages can seem chaotic and wild, and yet her goal as an artist is to draw the viewer in with something viscerally attractive, cohesive and sometimes quiet. The many layers required to create the work are often completely invisible to the viewer, but their existence is a mystery that draws one in. And sometimes patient observation is rewarded with a glimpse of what lies beneath the surface — just as intimacy makes visible the hidden layers of oneself.

Karen’s work is a personal expression of her identity as a woman, a mother, a wife and a Jew. While “Feminist” is the title I proudly claimed since I was a young girl, I am sometimes surprised by the many “traditional choices” I have made as an adult. I take great pleasure in many of the “womanly arts” such as: cooking, home making, child rearing, sewing and knitting, and creating a religious home.

In a life full of contradictions, Karen struggles with the ideals and realities of feminine power. She explains,

I am inspired by Proverb 31, A Woman of Valor, which explores the struggle between the freedom and confinement of an idealized woman. I enjoy using metaphors and symbols in my work, and many of them have personal significance to me. However, my hope is that they are universal keys which can unlock ideas of female strength and independence. Technically, working in mixed media collage is very satisfying, because it requires creating the materials and then reusing them in my compositions. It also leaves space to include painting and drawing, if I so choose. These works are made entirely of painted or printed papers, acrylic paint, acrylic gel medium, and various found objects. I work from many sources of inspiration, including photographs that I have taken and artists whom I admire.

About Black Wedding – Winner of Best Story in The Story of Women exhibit

This is a strange Eastern European superstition/custom called the “Black Wedding.” There was a strong magical aspect to the cholera wedding and the idea behind it was that a marriage in the presence of the dead would bring God’s attention to the suffering from the plague. This strange marriage was often between two people who were marginalized, by poverty or disability. The community sponsored their wedding and in return their marriage was an offering. These marriages occurred as early as 1831, during Russia’s first cholera pandemic, in 1849 in Krakow and in the US during the 1918 Spanish flu.  Judge Shanna T. Melton says of this work:

There is so much to see in this story of individuals coming together, feet firmly planted and hands held tightly. They seem to be moving in unison but the images, beautiful structure of creatures and hands, the way there is so much around them that seems to threaten and support their union holds true to how it can be when a couple marries. The attention to detail along with the story of the complexity of stepping into a union is an important conversation.