Karin Birch

BIO

Karin Birch has been using hand embroidery and hand stitched beadwork combined with acrylic paint as a medium for art making for more than twenty years. The act of hand stitching thread and beads is a slow and repetitive process that affords a space for uninterrupted thought. The act of painting is spontaneous, in the moment, physical movement. Combining these two opposite states gives form to endless exploration in to the mystery of being. “I work intuitively, mining personal experiences, energy, movement, nature and the occasional external interruptions of politics. I use this medium of minutiae as a practice for connecting with the vastness.”

-Karin Birch

GALLERY

ARTIST STATEMENT

I work in a hybrid medium of painting, hand embroidery and hand beadwork that combines the authority of painting and the articulation of drawing to create densely detailed biomorphic abstractions: mesmerizing meditations inspired by memory, nature and time. Starting with color, which is always an emotional response to what I am feeling or thinking, I paint fluid, fast and free. The process is often unplanned and the results are generally accidental. This sets a counterpoint to the stitching that comes next. Stitching is slow, considered and precise. Small areas are stitched, growing incrementally with time and repetition. As the stitching builds, ideas come and a subconscious landscape emerges, playing out little dramas. Abstraction reveals pattern, movement and visual relationships to perceive and ponder. Flowers are not flowers but ubiquitous shapes, repeatedly making new shapes. Thread and beads have an alluring, beautiful quality that draws the viewer into the minutia of detail long enough to find space for something more, something to feel and think about, something to make meaning of.